


The Young Martyr

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: Art, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25911055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: After the war is over, Beatrice and Ava have settled in Paris and try to figure out what it means to have ordinary lives.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 518
Kudos: 850
Collections: Stories I will read again with pleasure





	1. Chapter 1

Beatrice has spent a great deal of her life around old things, and she finds a serenity and calm in them. The smooth marble and muted colors of Renaissance art are a reassurance – that human hands can create, and can leave something of themselves behind after they’ve withered into dust. During her semester in Paris in her youth, she spent afternoons studying underneath the soft colors in the Monet museum, or the watchful eyes of Venus de Milo, trying not to be distracted at her bare chest and the way her dress just barely hung onto her hips. 

She has that beauty now, in flesh and blood, in a real, breathing, fragile temporary human body that she loves as desperately now as she did the day she confessed her feelings. And since the war is behind them now, and Beatrice is no longer a nun, it is time for both of them to live their lives together, and share what little bits of living they might have treasured from before they met. 

They are thirty, and it feels like eleven years has barely passed. 

“These are the pre-Raphaelites,” Ava ventures, looking up at the soft, moody colors of the paintings as they pass through the galleries. 

She’s been reading, which Beatrice appreciates. Ava wants to know more about the things that Beatrice loves, and Beatrice loves art. “You’re right.” 

They stop in front of one, a dark canvas of blues with the figure of a girl with straw-gold hair, hands bound, eyes closed, floating in the water. She is illuminated in a soft halo of golden light, and although her hands are bound, she looks peaceful. It is Delaroche’s _The Young Martyr,_ and Ava spends a few long minutes seeming to connect with it. 

“That could have been me,” she muses at last. 

Beatrice touches her shoulder. “I’m glad it wasn’t.” 

Ava turns and smiles crookedly at her. “Me too.” 

Ava made her choices, and Beatrice can only thank God that they were the right ones. Beatrice knows that under the soft, pink sweater Ava wears, a Halo scar resides on her back that will never go away, even though the Halo itself is long gone. 

Ava gives her an affectionate look. She’s said many times now that she loves Beatrice’s hair, thick and tied up in a little messy bun with strands escaping. She’s grown it, and it has become a play toy that Ava enjoys perhaps more than Beatrice does.

They meander past the Winged Victory, whose head has never been found. 

“What happened to her head?” Ava wants to know. 

“They don’t know,” Beatrice tells her. 

“Too bad,” Ava jokes, “she’s got a nice rack.” 

Beatrice will never be able to talk the way Ava does, but she doesn’t try to stop her anymore. She laughs. She loves it. She loves Ava. They are sharing Paris now, and trying to suck the marrow out of whatever remains of their lives. 

“So, show me your favorite,” Ava insists. 

Beatrice sighs. It’s hard to pick. The Louvre is literally the size of several football fields and one could get lost for days in it if one wanted. Her favorite certainly isn’t the Mona Lisa, always mobbed with tourists and always surprisingly small compared to the size of the legend in one’s mind. Beatrice decides.

Ava was willing to give up everything that came with the Halo, and Beatrice had been afraid that would mean losing her. It didn’t; to this day, she will never know whether it was Heaven or Hell that took pity on them, but here they are, making their way through Paris. Beatrice curls her hands around the handles of the wheelchair, and with a decisive stride, pushes Ava through a wing lined with marble statues, and stops in front of one in particular. 

“Holy shit,” Ava mutters. Beatrice doesn’t correct her language anymore. 

The statue is Antonia Canova’s _Psyche Revived by the Kiss of Love_ , and Beatrice has always felt moved by it. Her soul had always ached, despite her best efforts, to have someone come into her life, give her the gentle kiss of love, and bring her spirit to life anew. 

“It’s beautiful,” Ava says. 

“It is,” Beatrice agrees. “This is what I felt when I fell in love with you,” she says quietly. 

They take in the graceful, languid pose of the figures in white marble, Cupid’s wings unfurled as he gazes down at Psyche, holding her gently and sensually, and she looking up, awakening to his touch. Ava turns and looks back at her. “Really, huh?” 

“Really.” 

But Ava knows. Beatrice has always been unable to contain her feelings, has always sought the words to say what she feels for Ava despite it being a love that sometimes overwhelms her. 

Perhaps it was hell that let Ava live, and Heaven that didn’t let her keep it all. But Beatrice still remembers swearing to Ava the day she came through the twenty feet of rock for the first time, “It wouldn’t matter if you were a talking head in a bag. You have us, and we will never leave you.” 

And Beatrice hasn’t. They return the wheelchair after they visit the Canova, because Beatrice cannot imagine visiting any other works after that one. With her cane in hand, Ava follows her up into the gardens, where they breathe in the fragrant flowers and feast their eyes on the colors of the blooms and all the landscaping arranged just so. 

“I like the cane,” Ava decides. “I look like Mother Superion.”

They smile at that thought. Ava is a little more serious, a little more tired than she used to be, but she will never be as fearsome as Mother Superion, and she knows it. 

“Do you work tomorrow?” Ava asks. Beatrice has a job at the library at the Sorbonne, in the antiquities department. 

They sit on a bench and watch people stream by, and teenagers kick a soccer ball around. 

“I do,” Beatrice says. “But we have all of today.”

“Well, what should we do now?”

“I thought we might go home,” Beatrice says softly in Ava’s ear, with a weight of meaning to it that makes Ava smirk. Ava knows what Beatrice means when she says it this way. She wants to spend the rest of the afternoon naked in bed, indulging each other in any number of ways. She is already thinking about kissing the small of Ava’s back and working up her spine, feeling her relax into the gentle attention. She loves Ava’s body, pliable in her hands. 

“And do what?” Ava teases. “Read?”

“If you like,” Beatrice says, the little lilt in her voice betraying that the only thing she wants to read is Ava, cover to cover, every loveworn page and paragraph. 

“You can show me all about the neo-classicists,” Ava snickers, hauling herself to her feet with the aid of the cane. 

“I’m not sure you’re advanced enough for that yet. It’s very racy. I think you’re too immature.”

“Mature enough to risk my life for God,” Ava sighs, “but not enough for some naked statues, I see how it is.”

“You will,” Beatrice promises evenly. “I’ll show you exactly how it is.”

This is living. Love, art, and Paris in spring. They have both sacrificed and lost things, but have come out ahead in the trade. Beatrice needs nothing more than this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah it happened again. Another multi chap apparently LOL

Beatrice and Ava live in a shockingly small flat in the densest part of Paris, on a small block above several Greek restaurants where waiters stand outside the door with stacks of plates and periodically smash them against the cobblestones and shout “Opa!” as a way of drumming up business. Edith Piaf routinely drifts from the doorway of a cafe on the corner. Ava has learned how to make a decent cup of coffee but she still prefers it from the cafe. She can’t figure out what kind of beans they use, but it’s better.

Beatrice comes home after work and they work on Ava’s French for a little while Ava cooks dinner. Cooking is another thing she’s learned, mostly from YouTube videos, because they don’t have cable. Or any TV, actually. 

“Ça ne semble juste,” Ava complains.  _ It doesn’t seem fair. _

“Ça ne semble  _ pas _ juste,” Beatrice corrects her. “You spent fifteen years on your back watching television, you don’t need any more.” 

Ava sticks her tongue out at her, then stirs the stew again before pouring a glass of inexpensive Merlot. The aromas waft out: beef, root vegetables, herbes de provence, and a little of the wine. She’s getting good at this. “Hey, I meant to ask you, what does  _ putain _ mean?”

Beatrice’s mouth drops open a little. “Who called you that?” 

Ava waves a hand around. “No no, I heard it on the street.” 

Beatrice doesn’t really believe her and wonders who her lover has managed to irritate so much. “Well, if you must know, it’s rather an all purpose obscenity but the loosest translation, so to speak, is whore.” 

Ava swallows a chuckle. “ _ Putain _ ,” she mutters, amused at knowing some more blue language in French. “Good, I like it.  _ Merde _ will only get me so far, you know?” 

“So help me God, Ava, if I find out you’re running around talking ... _ shit… _ to our neighbors…” It’s still a bit of a frisson, a bit of thrill, to swear aloud. Beatrice knows it will probably never stop amusing Ava.

Ava laughs and reaches out, draws Beatrice close to her, kisses her and murmurs against her lips, “I promise, I’m being good.” 

“Be better,” Beatrice suggests. 

Ava kisses her a little more deeply. “Later, I promise. I’ll be so much better.” 

They drink their wine while Beatrice chatters about her work at the Sorbonne. Ava teases her about her supervisor, Maxine, who she insists has a crush on Beatrice. But Beatrice senses a little anxiety from Ava. As she spoons out dinner and sets a loaf of bread on the table that has been warming in the oven, Beatrice says, “Ava, there’s no competition.” 

“I know,” Ava says, and they sit down at the small round table wedged against the window that overlooks the narrow street. “I just… don’t get me wrong, I love being your uh…” She hunts for the French word for housewife. “Your  _ femme au foyer _ , but I just don’t feel like I’m pulling my weight.” 

Beatrice has worried about this. She takes Ava’s hand over the table. “What did I tell you all those years ago in the Vatican?” 

“That I was a flight risk?” Ava jokes.

“Not that.” 

Ava sighs. “Trust your team.”

“Right. I’m your team now. Us. We’re a unit, we’re a family. It doesn’t matter if I’m making money right now you aren’t.” 

Ava nods, but doesn’t seem satisfied. “I know. I guess I just don’t know what to do with myself. I mean, you have this amazing education and close proximity to church artifacts and the five languages or whatever, so it’s no wonder you found a job at the Sorbonne, but me? I’m…” She shrugs helplessly. “I have no applicable life experience except for fighting demons. That’s kind of a limited job market.” 

“Fencing instructor?” Beatrice suggests half jokingly. 

“ _ Putain _ ,” Ava says with a little snort. 

“I can’t tell if you’re cursing at me or telling me about a prospective career choice.” 

They laugh. 

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll figure it out.” 

They kill the rest of the wine and then retire to their cramped little bedroom, where they lounge on the bed and Beatrice reads to Ava from a book of poems by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore:

_ “I wanted to bring you roses this morning; _

_ But I had closed so many in my sash _

_ That the knots were too tight to contain them. _

_ The knots split. _

_ The roses blew away. _

_ All blew off to the sea, _

_ borne by the wind, _

_ Carried to the water, never to return. _

_ The waves looked red as if inflamed. _

_ Tonight, my dress is still perfumed. _

_ Breathe in the fragrant memory.” _

“That’s sad,” Ava decides. 

“Is it?” Beatrice wonders. “She still has the fragrance of the roses. Even though she lost them, something still lingers.” 

Ava tugs Beatrice’s sleeve and pulls her down toward her. “I want to keep the roses. I want the whole damn bouquet,” she mumbles, and draws her into a deep kiss. Beatrice lays the book on the bureau and leans into the kiss, and she sighs at how easily Ava opens up for her. 

Nothing is hurried, even after all this time together; lovemaking is sacred and slow. It is full-body kisses and ankles hooked together, the gentle flowing of one into the other. It is deep touches and even deeper kisses, fingertips pressing into flesh and muscle, the release of tensions and the relief of aches. It is how they come together, and it is the only way they know; tender worship of each other’s bodies, affection so great it feels like excess. Ava is particularly thorough in her efforts tonight, and Beatrice loses awareness of what sounds she might be making or how loudly she might be making them until she comes loudly enough to attract the attention of the neighbor on the other side of the wall, who thumps a few times with her broom. 

She flushes, but Ava just laughs. “Screw her.” She kisses Beatrice’s inner thigh. “ _ Elle est tres jalouse, c’est tout _ .”  _ She’s jealous, that’s all.  _ She drags herself up the bed and settles on top of Beatrice, kissing her with gleeful sloppiness. Beatrice tastes herself on Ava’s lips and it thrills her, the way it always does. 

She’s three quarters of the way to unconsciousness when she feels Ava hauling herself out of bed. “Where are you going?” she complains sleepily, eyes still closed.

“Sh, Ill be right back,” Ava whispers. 

Beatrice, trusting Ava’s gentle reassurance, falls fast asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Camila is the first of the sisters to visit. She’s in charge of security at a museum in Vienna now. Her hair is so curly it’s practically an afro, and she’s fond of loud colors. She arrives wearing a Hawaiian shirt that Ava doesn’t stop laughing at for a good ten minutes. But the minute she hears a man in the cafe have a snide word to say about it, she shouts “ _Ferme la bouche, putain!_ ” and glares at him until he leaves with his coffee.

Beatrice pats her hand. “Alright, alright. I know you want to use your new vocabulary, but pace yourself, please.” She glances at Ava’s fist, which is clutching the end of her cane, and notices her white knuckles. Gently, without a word, she uncurls Ava’s fingers and leans the cane back against the edge of the table.

Camila frowns. “What did you say to him?”

They both smile affectionately at Camila. “Don’t worry about it,” says Beatrice.

“I didn’t like his coffee order,” Ava says.

“How’s the leg?” Camila asks Ava.

“It’s crap,” she answers casually. “But the cane is cool. I feel like I’m cosplaying Willy Wonka.”

Camila doesn’t know Paris, so Beatrice enjoys taking her around. It isn’t quite like old times; it’s strange to revisit a relationship that was forged in fire when the fire has long gone out and all of you are different now. 

They end up at a small bar in the Latin quarter where a piano sits wedged into the corner of the room. After enough beers, they persuade Camila to play. Initially, when she flips it open, it draws some consternation from the room, so Beatrice suggests, “Play something French.”

“I only know one French song.”

“Is it La Marseilleise?” Ava figures the official French National anthem is probably a safe bet. 

“Might as well be,” Camila says, grinning. And she begins playing. 

_“Non… rien de rien…_

_Non… je ne regrette rien…”_

The mood immediately changes and soon the small bar is full of drunk French people singing along to the _unofficial_ French national anthem, courtesy of Edith Piaf. Camila’s playing has improved some, but as always, it’s really just her spirit of wanting to include everyone that gets the room participating. 

Beatrice has heard the song a thousand times, but never reflected much on the lyrics till now. _“Nothing/ I regret nothing/ Neither the good done to me/Nor the evil, it’s all the same….”_

Drunk Ava with a cane seems like a bad idea, so they stumble home in a row, Ava in the middle, bookended by Beatrice and Camila. She’s still singing the song at the top of her lungs: _“Car ma vie, car mes joies… aujourd’hui.. ça commence avec toi!!!”_

Beatrice and Camila, only slightly less tipsy, laugh but try to shush her.

“It’s a great song,” Ava says. “I have no regrets! Because my life, my joy… today begins with you.” She stares meaningfully at Bea. “I feel that. I regret nothing.” She tilts her head toward Camila. “Will you get mad if I make out with my girlfriend, Camilla?”

Camila giggles a little. “In general, no? But maybe not while we’re all hooked together trying to walk drunk down a cobblestone street.”

Ava nods sagely. “That is fair.”

They put Camila in a taxi to her hotel. Ava has her method of getting up the one flight of stairs to their apartment, and she’s surprisingly swift even in her current state. 

They’re too tired and drunk to make love, so they just slide out of their clothes and into bed, where they hold each other and enjoy each other’s warm skin. “God I love your naked ass so much,” Ava mumbles in her ear. 

“Likewise I’m sure,” Beatrice mumbles back, and kisses Ava’s bare shoulder. The room is spinning a little, and she’s having a lot of feelings. Seeing Camila is wonderful, but she has a pang of missing that family, those sisters who knew her so well. 

“Bea?”

“Hm?”

“Could we… could we do something?”

“Now?”

“No no. Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I wanna… can we go to a park or something and… and spar?”

Beatrice is surprised by this. After separating from the Halo, and the long recovery afterward, Ava has not expressed the slightest interest in it. In truth, Beatrice has missed it. Before finding her job at the library, she had considered becoming a taekwondo instructor. The fight still lives in her bones, despite being dormant for the last couple of years.

“We’ll have to…” She yawns. “...figure out what that means for you.”

“Cause of my leg.”

“Yes.” Béatrice kisses Ava’s head, which rests comfortably between her breasts. “You wouldn’t be the first fighter to adapt their training after a change in their abilities.”

Beatrice suspects that seeing Camila may have jarred something in Ava too. But she’s also drunk, and may not remember in the morning. 

Ava’s arm tightens around her waist. “I love you,” she declares emphatically.

“I love you more,” Beatrice says playfully.

“It’s too bad I’m so tired right now.”

“Why’s that?”

Ava proceeds to explain in loving detail everything she would do for Beatrice right now if she were less drunk and sleepy. Beatrice flushes and her body begins responding to Ava’s vivid descriptions. “Stop talking,” she pleads, “unless you’re actually going to do all that.”

Ava chuckles. “Did I get you all worked up?”

Beatrice scoffs. “What do you think?”

“Ok, ok, I’ll shut up.” She nestles against Beatrice’s body. Sleep mercifully closes over them. 

Beatrice wakes up crying softly at some point during the night, and isn’t sure why. Ava soothes her back to sleep.

When they wake, they smell coffee brewing and smell eggs and garlic cooking. Ava and Beatrice shuffle out into the kitchen to find Camila there, making omelets.

“What are you doing here?” Beatrice asks.

“Making you guys breakfast. You two were a lot drunker than I was.”

“But how did you get in?” Ava yawns.

“Uh, hello? I was a ninja for over a decade?”

Camila is eager to go to the park with them to spar. She has a lot of thoughts about what an adapted fighting style would be like for Ava and is anxious to share them. “I think the main thing is, you gotta make the cane part of your fighting style. Work with it, not against it, right?” 

They naturally attract attention: a petite woman in a loud Hawaiian shirt coaching a woman with a cane who is fighting a librarian with a bo staff. Beatrice tries to balance taking it easy on Ava with pushing her just enough to rouse the fighting spirit in her, the _screw you I’m going to do this_ spirit that made her a good warrior once. And it seems to work. They talk about how Ava needs to distribute her weight and what to lean on in order to make effective attacks. She manages to land a few blows that feel solid. Beatrice is proud of her. When Ava takes a break, Camila and Beatrice go a few rounds, Beatrice with her staff and Camila borrowing Ava’s cane. 

“This thing is great,” she announces. 

“See?” Ava says, laughing. 

Even as rusty as they are, their bouts are impressive enough to garner some scattered applause from onlookers.

Later, they’re eating dinner at an outdoor cafe, and Camila gets up to go to the ladies room. 

“How did it feel, training?” Beatrice asks. 

Ava shrugs, but she seems cheerful. “I mean, I know you were taking it easy on me, but.. It felt good. It reminded me of…” She trails off. “...of when I had a purpose.” 

Beatrice grabs her hand. “Don’t get like that.” 

Ava shakes her off. “No, I’m fine. I don’t mean it like that. I just want you to be proud of me.” 

Beatrice’s heart breaks when she says this. Why is it so hard for her to accept that her worth never came from that stupid halo? “I _am_. Look how far you’ve come. You’ve had nothing remotely close to a normal life, you’ve got to learn all of these things now.” 

“I know. It’s just…” 

Camila comes back from the bathroom. “Hey, you guys, did you see the desserts?” Her unrestrained eagerness shakes them from their melancholy moment. They share between them a number of creamy french desserts that none of them know the names of, they just point at the dessert tray and say, “That one.” 

They all cry when Camila departs that next morning. It was too much to have her blow in this way and then depart so quickly. Camila carried with her so many markers of their old life, all its shared joys and sorrows and tribulations, and it has sent a little earthquake through the life that Ava and Beatrice have built together. Nostalgia isn’t quite the word. It is simply too much to dwell again in the blood-bond they shared with her, and then have it yanked away again. 

Beatrice calls her mother that night, but then hangs up when she answers.

She decides she has all the family she needs in this tiny second-floor apartment.


	4. Chapter 4

Neither Beatrice nor Ava escaped the war unscarred. While Ava’s is more evident, Beatrice is nevertheless the bearer of a few pale, crazed slash lines on her skin; a strange, pitted stab wound in her thigh, a slash line across her abdomen, and a few little puncture wounds in her upper arm where Lilith snatched her out of the jaws of death without, unfortunately, retracting her long, black fingernails. 

Nobody but Ava sees these scars, and their knowledge is one more shade of their intimacy. Ava is especially aware of their meaning, and often kisses them adoringly as they make love. In more than one way, their wounds bind them together.

Beatrice awakes in the night with her scars aching dully, to find the bed empty. She hears the distinctive, three-beat gait of Ava coming up the stairs. A few moments later, Ava comes shuffling in. “Where were you?” Beatrice asks her. 

Ava yawns. “I went for a walk. Couldn’t sleep.” 

“Be careful out there,” Beatrice says reproachfully. “No large city is entirely safe in the middle of the night.” She worries that perhaps with the training they’ve been doing lately, Ava is experiencing a resurgence of her old recklessness.

“I know, I know.” She sits down on the bed and takes off her shoes. “But listen, I want to show you something.” Her face, framed in moonlight through the little window, is eager and perhaps a little agitated.

Beatrice looks at her expectantly. 

Ava holds up a hand, and focuses on it with a look of concentration. After a few seconds of wondering what on earth she could be up to, Beatrice sees a faint, gold glow around her hand. Beatrice gasps. The light lasts a few seconds, and then dims down again. Ava drops her hand, and looks at her excitedly. “Did you see that?” 

Beatrice doesn’t know what to make of it. “I did,” she says warily, “but… how?” 

“I don’t know!” Ava is bouncing up and down a little. “I guess the Halo must have left a little something behind.” 

“Does it… do anything?” This is the first concern on her mind; what does this potentially change?

Ava shakes her head. “Not that I can tell. At the moment, I’m just a human night light.” 

Beatrice laughs at this, but it makes her uneasy. “Why now, I wonder?” 

Ava shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe it was always there and I just didn’t have the… energy or something.” 

Beatrice frowns a little. “There’s a lot we don’t know about the Halo. I’m going to do a little research when I go to work in the morning.” 

“I mean, there’s never been anyone like me, right?” Ava says. “A Halo Bearer who was chosen by the Halo, but didn’t die in battle?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t answers.” 

Beatrice hunts for answers at work when she has free minutes, but isn’t coming up with anything much. They continue to train in the park when the weather is good, although it’s starting to get crisp as autumn comes in, dusting everything with orange and gold. Ava’s restlessness continues; Beatrice wakes up in the night to find Ava coming home from walks a few times a week. 

Finally, one night, she wakes up and hears Ava’s gait, coming up the stairs, but it doesn’t sound right. Beatrice jumps out of bed and runs out of the apartment to find Ava dragging herself up the steps, struggling. She’s got a bloody nose. Heart in her throat, Beatrice runs down, and helps her the rest of the way up. She helps her into a kitchen chair and, her chest roiling with anxiety and worry and a little bit of anger, she demands, “Where the hell have you been? The truth, please?!” Even now, as frustrated as she is, she gently wipes the blood from Ava’s face. 

“It’s … don’t be mad,” Ava pants. 

“That ship may have sailed,” Beatrice says curtly. “What happened to you?” 

Ava takes the cloth from Beatrice and pinches her nose carefully, hoping to stop the bleeding. “Well, you should see the other guys.”

“Have you really been going for walks?” 

“I have, I have, I swear. I just…” Ava sighs. “I saw someone getting… mugged. And… I stopped them.” 

“With your face, apparently,” Beatrice scolds. But she softens a little. “Where were you?” 

“I went over the bridge and was walking around Île St. Louis, and... I saw these two guys, in a little side alley, mugging this cook who looked like she just got off work.” 

Beatrice glances at the wall clock. “At two a.m.” 

Ava nods. “Late shift in a restaurant? Sure.” She takes the cloth from her nose and glances down at it. “Jesus, that’s a lot of blood.” 

“Wait, two guys?”

“Yeah.” Unable to keep herself from peacocking a little, Ava adds, “I kicked their asses.” 

Beatrice sighs heavily. “You don’t have to be a crime fighter,” she scolds. “That’s not where your value comes from.” 

“I know,” Ava says, “but… it felt good. I felt like I was doing something that mattered.” 

Beatrice shakes her head. “Please, don’t do this again.” 

“Bea, I’m fine!”

“You’re dripping blood on your trousers.” 

Ava puts the cloth back up to her nose. Frustrating as it is, Beatrice realizes, this is also the Ava that she fell in love with; good-hearted and reckless. She drops to her knees and takes Ava by the shoulders. “Ava, I love that you want to do good. But that part of our life is over. I don’t want to lose the love of my life because she can’t keep herself from hobbling the streets of Paris at night, beating up criminals with her cane.” 

“Ye of little faith,” Ava says, stroking her face and looking at her affectionately. 

Beatrice’s eyes well up a little. “Damn you.” 

“Too late,” Ava says, and pulls the cloth away again, gives her a crooked little smile, and then leans down and kisses her. 

Laughing softly and also crying a little, they stay that way, kissing, until Beatrice feels a few warm drops of blood on her upper lip. She withdraws and wipes them away with her hand. “You really just refuse to stop bleeding,” she complains. 

“Sorry,” Ava says sheepishly.

An idea occurs. “Try your human night light trick,” she suggests. 

Ava looks at her, perplexed. “Why?”

Beatrice shrugs. “Maybe it won’t help. But maybe you’ll stop bleeding all over the both of us.” 

Ava shrugs. “What’s the worst that could happen?” she sighs. She holds up her hand, and once she manages to summon the soft, golden glow, she lays it over her face for a moment, and holds it there until she’s unable to hold her concentration any longer. The light fades away. Beatrice waits expectantly. “Well?”

Ava takes her hand away and waits, taking a sensory inventory. “It hurts less,” she decides after a moment. After a few more moments, she decides, “I don’t seem to be bleeding anymore.” 

Beatrice inspects her face. Despite Ava’s report that it feels better, she still looks like she’s been through… well, a fight. “That’s going to swell up if we don’t get some ice on it.” 

As she sits in the darkened kitchen with the bag of ice on her face, Ava whispers, “You still love me?” 

Beatrice comes in behind her and pulls Ava back against herself. “No. This is it. It’s over. I’m done. Pack your things and move to Switzerland.” 

Ava chuckles. “I’ll learn to ski.” 

“Skis  _ are _ a good size and weight for beating people up.” 

“Well, if that’s how it is, I’ll move out tomorrow.” 

They change the bag of ice after most of it melts, and then retire to the bed. Propped up against several pillows, Beatrice holds Ava against her chest, stroking her hair and sighing. “I love you, you know.” 

“I’m an idiot.” 

“Yes. But you’re my idiot.” 

“So… not banishing me to Switzerland, then?” 

Beatrice kisses Ava’s head and warns, “For now, no.” 

“I’ll take it.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we get a bit cerebral here, sorry not sorry

Beatrice’s relationship with the Almighty has changed over the years. After falling in love with Ava, she had to come to the realization that she was using him as a cudgel to beat herself into submission. For a long time, she had no words for him, but he didn’t seem to mind. She continued to fight the righteous fight because that had become her life’s purpose, but once the order was disbanded, she’d had to lay aside her faith for a while. She even stopped wearing the small silver crucifix that she’d always worn underneath everything since she was a teenager. 

Today, she takes it out of a box, and puts it on. Ava looks quizzically at her. “Haven’t seen that in a while.” 

Beatrice nods. “I was walking by the burnt-out shell of Notre Dame the other day and something inside me… missed it.” 

Ava accepts this without comment. After this long together, she understands that Beatrice has a journey with the divine that is different from her own. Beatrice isn’t ready to start attending mass again, but she comes home from work that night with two stacks of books: one for herself, and one for Ava. 

“What’s all that?” Ava asks.

“This is for me. I mean, you’re welcome to look at it, but I don’t think it’ll hold much interest.” Beatrice’s pile is Catholic theology: Thomas Aquinas, Hans Kung, Sister Elizabeth Johnson’s _She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse_. She places a second pile beside it. “This is for you. I think it might interest you more.” 

In Ava’s pile is an assortment of classic literature at a variety of reading levels: _True Grit, The Color Purple, All the Light We Cannot See_. Ava picks them up one by one and turns them over in her hands to read the backs. “Why these?” 

“You missed out on a lot,” Beatrice says. “And I think these will appeal to you for various reasons.” She gathers Ava up in her arms and kisses her before explaining further. “These are stories of heroes undeterred, and worlds beyond your experience. But at their core is a humanity I think may speak to you.” 

Ava considers this. “Okay,” she says, not seeming terribly excited, but trusting Beatrice enough to at least try what she’s suggesting. 

Ava tears through _True Grit,_ the story of a young girl in the Old West, pursuing vengeance on the man who shot her father. She finishes it in two days, and wants more like it. Beatrice starts bringing home armloads of books every couple of days. At some point, a small cloth-bound journal appears, where Ava appears to be taking notes. 

“If only Lilith could see you now,” Beatrice teases. “She’d be quite upset you didn’t apply yourself to your Bible studies with anywhere near this much vigor.” 

“I applied myself sometimes,” Ava objects. 

“Yes, to the sexy bits.” 

“I didn’t hear you complaining.” 

Beatrice can’t argue with this. 

So Ava applies herself to the study of literature, and Beatrice explores some new and old theological reading. Life feels wrong without a more rigorous faith practice, but she wants to find a way that fits with who she has become. She feels blessed: she has a satisfying job, a flat in Paris, and a love that is so much more than she ever could have hoped. She needs to understand why, then, it still feels slightly off balance. 

They continue to train on the weekends, but evenings during the week are now time for quiet reading and reflection, filled with the sounds of soft music, the occasional scratching of Ava’s pen, and the tapping of rain against the window as they swing into a particularly rainy autumn. If Ava has been continuing to sneak out at night for “walks”, Beatrice is not aware of it.

“I spent a lot of the book frustrated with him because he didn’t do the right thing in the beginning,” Ava sighs, finishing the _The Kite Runner_.

Beatrice looks up and smiles. “Perhaps you’re projecting.” 

Ava smirks. She tilts her head and looks at Beatrice’s book. “Still working on _She Who Is_ , huh? So what’s the verdict? Is God a woman?”

Beatrice laughs. “Maybe. I’ll let you know when I’m done thinking about it.”

These days, Beatrice is the one waking up restless. 

On one night, Beatrice wakes up, and even the warmth of Ava’s body is not enough to help her back to sleep. She climbs out of bed and makes her way down into the rain-slicked street. Her feet carry her across the bridge to the plaza in front of Notre Dame, and she stares at the battered silhouette of it against the night sky. 

Mother Superion once said to her, _If you ask God for something, look at your life. That’s where the answer is. Not up there._

She isn’t sure how long she stands there, but she feels as though she’s staring at a physical manifestation of her own faith; something ancient and beautiful that in the end, could not withstand the forces of nature, something that partially collapsed but still casts the shadow of its shell on everything around it. She is underdressed for the damp and the chill, and the rain runs in rivulets down her face. She is not aware of weeping, until she feels an incredible warmth on her shoulder, and a sense of well-being that suffuses her from the point of contact. She glances down, and sees Ava’s hand there, glowing softly in the rain. 

Ava too, is insufficiently dressed, still in her flannel duck pajamas with a raincoat thrown over them, but the light in her hand dies down, and she produces an umbrella from her pocket and opens it over their heads. “Are you alright?” 

Beatrice nods dumbly. Ava’s touch didn’t heal the fractures inside her, but it filled them for a moment with gold, reminded her that she was whole. She digs her fingers into Ava’s wet hair and kisses her. 

“You wanna go to mass again?” Ava asks her when they stop for air. 

“Yes. But not for him. Her. Whatever. Not for God. For myself.” 

Ava might or might not understand, but she strokes Beatrice’s cold, damp cheek and says, “Okay. Paris is full of cathedrals, we’ll find you one. We’ll go. We’ll go together.” She gestures to where a shiny, black Parisian taxi sits purring near the curb several yards away. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Huddled under the umbrella, they awkwardly make their way to the taxi and go home. When they arrive upstairs, still shivering, Ava goes into the bathroom. Beatrice hears the shower turn on. A moment later, the door pops open and Ava peers out of a cloud of steam and gently says, “Come on.” 

She parks herself in her chair in the shower, and Beatrice slides in after her, and after a moment of her chilled skin warming in the steam and the beat of the warm water, she drops to her knees, lays her head in Ava’s lap, and lets the shower run in over them both. It takes the ache out of her bones, chases away the cold. Tears slip out, but they mix with the water. She holds onto Ava’s thighs, and they are her gravity. Ava’s hands are stroking her wet hair, and Beatrice shifts into her touch. 

_Upon this rock, I will build my church,_ she thinks. She pushes Ava’s thighs apart so she can draw herself in closer, wrap her arms around her, lay her head against her chest and kiss it. They stay this way until the hot water runs out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You sat through a chapter of book porn so here is your reward :)

Ava is better at not fidgeting during mass than she used to be. They find an old church not far from their flat, and Beatrice feels a sense of peace and homecoming as she enters and smells the incense and walks through the colors of the stained glass splashing across the pews. With Ava at her side, it feels complete. Her presence, her love, her respect and the same old irreverence that Beatrice knows lies beneath it all, somehow come together to make something that feels like home. 

The priest delivers most of his homily too quickly for Ava to follow it in French, but Beatrice sees her scribble down one verse in her cloth-covered journal:  _ “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” _

Her heart is overflowing as they leave for home. “Was it alright?” she asks Ava. She hopes so. There was something to the joining of these two things, her faith and her love, that felt like lock and key.

Ava nodded. “Yeah. Me and the big guy, we’re not exactly on a first name basis, but… the thing the priest said about love… it made a lot of sense.” Her lips curl with a little mischief. “Of course, it was also the only part he said slowly enough for me to understand, but…” 

Beatrice laughs. “Let’s hurry home,” she says, with that tone that they both know well. 

Ava looks at her, surprised. “Really?”

Beatrice nods. She feels elevated, whole, and wants Ava with her in this moment. 

Ava chuckles. “If I knew taking you to mass was gonna have that effect I’d have suggested it a lot sooner.” They flag a taxi and race home, squeezing each other’s hands tightly in the back seat.

With sunlight streaming through the small bedroom window, they sit at the edge of the bed, kissing softly, and Beatrice begins to unbutton Ava’s blouse, unhurried, one at a time. After each, she pauses, leans down, and kisses the new inch of skin she’s laid bare. After the fourth button, she slides it up over Ava’s head and lays it aside. 

Ava tugs at Beatrice’s sweater, and slips her hands underneath it, pushes it up. Beatrice raises her arms to let Ava take it off and place it carefully on the dresser. 

Their passions run deep and powerful, but they proceed with care and tenderness, for that in itself is an act of love. Beatrice takes Ava in her arms, kisses her deeply, loves the familiar taste of her mouth. They unhook each other’s bras and lower themselves onto the bed, desiring nothing less than the total experience of one another. 

Ava is on her back, and Beatrice has settled on top of her, kissing her mouth, cheek, jaw, and the tendons of her neck. “To you,” she whispers, “I lift up my soul.” 

Ava’s fingers find their way into Beatrice’s braid and undo it, and her hair falls down her neck and shoulders. It brushes along Ava’s skin as Beatrice moves down to kiss her neck, shoulders, and chest. Ava’s body arches into hers, and Beatrice delights in the feel of their skin sliding against each other as she moves down Ava’s body. She grips Ava’s hips, slides her hands up her narrow waist and settles at her ribcage. She spends a moment breathing in the scent of Ava’s skin, the soap, the sweat, the lavender perfume, and just  _ her _ , before taking one of Ava’s nipples into her mouth and gently sucking. 

Ava whimpers at the first touch of her lips; one arm curls around Beatrice and cradles her head there, against her chest, the other bends to knot fingers in her hair. “This is love,” she sighs.

They remain this way, achingly sweet, Ava arching into her mouth, moving her hips against Beatrice’s body, until she stiffens and shudders with a small, quiet orgasm. Beatrice lifts up onto her elbows and they smile at each other. “It is love,” Beatrice agrees. “And without love, we are nothing.” 

Beatrice is not through with her. Not by a damn sight.

She rocks up onto her knees and looks at Ava. The definition of her body has blurred a little over the years, but she’s still fit, still beautiful. The bliss of orgasm still lingers on her face, her eyes sleepy and lips full. God, Beatrice thinks, her lips. “I’m going to finish undressing you now,” she says quietly. 

Ava helpfully unbuttons her trousers, and lifts herself off the mattress enough for Beatrice to slide them off. After liberating herself from her own, she gently turns Ava on her stomach and lays on top of her back. Her skin is warm and like always, their bodies are so soft against each other it feels like melting into her. “I want to give you everything,” she murmurs. 

“Everything, yes please,” Ava sighs back. 

“Everything and more.”

She kisses down Ava’s back, pausing for special attention to the Halo scar that takes up so much of it, and then down her spine. She is aching to lavish as much love on her as her body can stand, as much as she can give. She gently parts Ava’s legs, and presses a finger into her, shivers with a deep thrill that wraps itself around her core as Ava responds, lifting her hips, sighing. She’s wet as spring, ready for the kind of deep touch that Beatrice wants to give her. 

She settles into her, lays down on her again, kisses Ava’s back as she moves inside her. She knows Ava’s body so well, and knows what she likes to feel. This is more than intimate; it is holy and Beatrice’s heart is ecstatic to share this. They are connected to each other, and move together, and before long, the tension swells again, and they both come, sighing, moaning each other’s names and thanking God for the gift of their love. They lay this way for a while, Ava happily squashed under Beatrice’s weight, Beatrice loving the feel of Ava’s full length beneath her. 

After a bit, she rolls off of Ava, and Ava turns over, and they lay side by side, facing each other, smiling blissfully. Ava takes Beatrice’s hand, and kisses the back of it, then licks her fingers one by one. Beatrice’s heart flutters when her mouth closes around each digit and her tongue works up and down it. 

“I want you for the rest of my life,” Beatrice whispers, feeling impulsive. 

Ava lays their tangled hands on the mattress between them. “Yeah, I want that too.” 

Beatrice shakes her head. “No, I mean… I want… I want to build my life on this. On us.” 

Ava looks quizzical. “Aren’t we doing that already?” 

Beatrice smiles and kisses their knotted fingers. “Yes. But I had something a bit more official in mind.” 

Ava processes this for a moment. “Oh.  _ OH _ . You mean like… like, married?”

“Yes.”

Ava tips her head forward and kisses Beatrice deeply before answering. “I want to say yes,” she says carefully. “I want that too. But… I want to be a little more  _ together _ , I guess. You know who you are, mostly. I’m still kind of a disaster. I want to be less of a disaster before we do that. I feel like I owe you that much.” 

Beatrice laughs. “You don’t owe me anything! How many times have we saved each other’s lives?” 

“I know, I know,” Ava says gently, “but look. That was another lifetime. And… you needed time to get to this place, right? Look how long we’ve been together and we’re only able to even talk about this now. I never thought that you would have wanted it.” 

Beatrice considers her. 

“I’m not saying no,” Ava promises. “I’m not. I want that too. I want rings and I want to get old with you and everything. I do. I just… can you give me a little more time?” 

Beatrice knows it was impetuous of her to bring it up this way, but she’s a little disappointed. Still, she understands that Ava is still very much working through who she is in this life. 

Ava strokes her cheek. “I never imagined I’d have someone like you in my life. I can’t believe sometimes how much I love you. I never thought this was possible for me. There’s nobody else I would ever want to be with. I just… I want to start it off right. I want to know who I am before I join that person to someone else forever. That’s how seriously I take it.” 

Beatrice draws herself closer. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready?”

“I swear to God.”

“I’m not sure how she feels about you swearing at her.” 

“She’ll get over it.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here have a little hurt/comfort

God lives in the spaces in between. 

Beatrice has decided that she likes the radical nun’s interpretation of God. She decides that God is, more than anything, love. And love lives everywhere that one allows it to. 

She has contented herself for now with the idea that Ava is committed to her, and though she doesn’t know what’s going on inside her head sometimes, it’s clear she’s working towards something as she continues to tear through books, and the cloth-bound journals begin to accumulate on top of their dresser. 

As November begins to frost the windows over, and the cathedral bells sound crisper somehow, Beatrice thinks that she has settled into a path that leads to something good. 

The unexpected knock on their door comes just after dinner on a Thursday, as they’re washing dishes by the small sink and Beatrice is hunting up some classical music on the radio. 

Ava opens it, and Beatrice sees her mother standing there. Everyone stands frozen for a moment, unsure of what comes next. 

Ava recognizes Beatrice in her mother’s face, so she moves aside to allow her in. Beatrice doesn’t know what to expect or why her mother would arrive here without notice. 

Her mother’s clothes are tidy and fashionable as ever, her nose a little red from the chill but otherwise, not so much as an eyelash out of place. She steps into the flat, not enough to allow Ava to close the door. 

“Mother,” Beatrice finally says. 

Her mother looks around, takes in the smallness of the flat, the apparent domestic comfort of Ava and Beatrice, and that is all she needs to size up the situation. “Beatrice.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Your father’s cancer has returned. He hasn’t much longer. I hoped you might come to London and reconcile before it’s too late.” 

A coldness settles in Beatrice’s chest. She gave up on her parents’ love long ago, but she doesn’t know what to feel about her father’s imminent demise. “And why would you ask me to do that?” 

“We suspected that once you left the convent, that you would be living…” She gestures around unhappily. “...like this. We asked only one thing of you, and you couldn’t seem to manage it.” 

The coldness in her chest seeps out into her arms, her fingers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t manage something so small as denying myself the chance to love and be loved.” Her voice is even. Flat. She will not show her mother the depths that ache beneath the frozen surface. 

“That’s what this is?” Her tone is incredulous. 

Ava becomes indignant. Beatrice can see her hackles raise. 

“You’ve never understood what was at stake for him,” her mother continues.

“For him?” Beatrice feels her ice start to crack. “Have you any idea what was at stake for me? What I risked to be a part of the order?”

“No-one told you to go off and do dangerous things,” Mother says curtly.

“I’m not coming.”

“You’ll be written out of the will.”

“He’s been threatening that since I was fourteen. I don’t need your money.”

Her mother frowns. “Just come, Beatrice. I won’t tell him you’re living this way.”

Ava leans hard on her cane. Beatrice knows in a moment she’s not going to be able to restrain herself.

“No, Mother. I’m not ashamed of my life. I work at the Sorbonne library. I’ve a roof over my head. I live my life with someone who I love and trust. I refuse to be ashamed of it, and I won’t lie about it just to get Father’s money.”

Her mother shakes her head, disappointed. “You’re making a mistake.”

Ava cannot hold her silence any longer. She steps closer to Mother and addresses her. “Lady, if I had a bell right now, I’d be ringing it in your face, chanting ‘shame’. You and your husband both.” Her hand shakes as she leans hard on the cane, closer to her mother’s face. “You two brought this woman… this kind, brave, brilliant, pure-hearted  _ symphony _ of a woman into the world. You created someone so amazing that I couldn’t have kept myself from loving her if I wanted to. I’d want to thank you for her, if you weren’t such assholes about it. You can’t even appreciate her, just because she doesn’t reflect you and your own image.” Her voice is strangely calm, despite the passion in her words and the white-knuckled grip on her cane. “But maybe that’s because you left her on her own, to make herself. Maybe I only have her to thank for who she is anyway.”

Awkward silence falls. Her mother stares at Ava. Beatrice suspects that her mother doesn’t care about any of it as much as her father, a conservative politician, does. That she’s just frustrated that she can’t wish it away somehow. 

Beatrice can’t remember the last time she’s seen Ava this angry, but also this restrained. Ava lifts her hand, and for half a moment, Beatrice wonders if she’s going to slap her mother, but instead, she just places it on her mother’s shoulder and levels a gaze at her that would wither almost anyone else. Her hand takes on that now-familiar soft glow. Beatrice doesn’t know whether it’s on purpose or just a result of her emotion. 

“You need to think hard about why you really came here,” she says, calm, but forceful. She stays that way for a moment and then removes her hand. She glances between Beatrice and her mother. “I’m not gonna ask you to leave, because this is Beatrice’s home too, but I’ve said what I needed to say.” She turns and hauls herself off to the bedroom. 

Beatrice and her mother stare at each other for a moment, and Beatrice is surprised to see a tear creep out the corner of her mother’s eye. Without any other remarks, she turns and leaves the flat, and her hard footsteps hurry away down the stairs.

She closes the door, and as soon as the latch clicks into place, Beatrice breaks down. She thought she was past all of this, but her mother turning up this way has shocked her system. 

Ava comes shuffling out of the bedroom and comes behind her, wraps her arms around her, kisses her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Beatrice chokes out in between quiet little sobs. Ava’s hands are wiping the hot tears from her face. 

“Ssh, you have nothing to be sorry for.” Ava holds her tightly, standing right there in their little old kitchen with the yellowing walls and the low background violins sighing out a Brahm’s movement. “Maybe this is the best she knows how to do, I don’t know. But you know what love looks like now. You don’t have to settle for what she’s bringing you. If you want to deal with her, it can be on your terms now.”

Ava leads her to bed, gently undresses her, and they slide naked between the sheets. Ava holds her, strokes her, kisses her, and promises her she meant every word of what she said. She lays herself on top of Beatrice, and her weight grounds her, keeps her from spinning away into old hurts. She whispers, “You’re a good girl, Beatrice,” in her ear, and Beatrice’s body aches. She begs to hear it again. 

“Good girl,” Ava whispers. 

Beatrice doesn’t need to tell Ava what she wants; she wants to erase the grief and pain that was stirred up just now. Ava understands. Thighs tangled together, their hips moving against each other, Ava keeps whispering soft things to her:  _ you’re so beautiful, so amazing, you’re an angel, I’ll never love anyone like I love you, you’re mine, _ and –her favorite–  _ you’re such a good girl.  _ She continues to tell her so as she attends to every inch of her; lips, hands, breasts, belly, thighs, sex. 

Long after Ava has finished her off for a third time, she continues to hold Beatrice, stroke her face, her hair, kiss her neck and chest, and tell her over and over that she’s precious and loved. 

Precious and loved. No wonder her resistance crumbled the minute Ava showed her the slightest flash of feeling, of tenderness. She’d spent her whole life without it. 

Exhausted, she sighs, “A symphony, did you say?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ava confirms. She’s on her back now, and Beatrice’s face is buried in her chest, and her hand is stroking Beatrice’s hair. 

“Never called me that before.” 

“It’s true. Every part of you is individually beautiful, but you’re so much more than the sum of your parts.” 

Beatrice is raw and tired. “I can say the same of you.” 

“Yeah, but I’m not a symphony.”

“No,” Beatrice agrees. “You’re jazz.”

“Jazz?”

“Five guys playing five different things at the same time. Chaos.” 

They laugh. They kiss.

They sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things get a little plotty

It’s only a week later when Beatrice’s mother calls. To Beatrice’s surprise, she confesses that she doesn’t understand Beatrice’s choice, but that Ava’s expression of love had been sticking in her mind. Nobody talks that way, she says. Nobody is  _ that _ in love. But Ava is.

She tries again to get Beatrice to come back to London. Beatrice tells her that if it involves lying about Ava, that she’s still not interested. 

“He’s going to be gone soon,” her mother says, “and then it will just be the two of us.”

“Will it?” Beatrice says dryly. 

“Your…  _ friend… _ gave me quite the sales pitch,” she says, “and I would like to know my daughter.”

Beatrice sighs. It is deeply unsatisfactory. But it is more effort than she has gotten from her mother in years, perhaps ever. “I’ll think about it,” she says.

“Don’t think too long. Time is swift and unrelenting.” 

This is the truest thing her mother has ever said. She does not puncture their cocoon again for a while. 

December approaches, when the Seine shows patches of ice in early morning and the sunrises are clear because it’s too cold for the haze that sometimes hangs in the air in warmer weather. Beatrice loves the look of Ava in her scarves and knit hats and soft, fuzzy mittens. Ava learns how to make a proper hot chocolate and they stuff up the drafty windows with newspaper and weather stripping tape, and fall asleep to the hissing of the elderly steam heater in their building. 

They continue the rhythm of their life together: cooking, training, and intellectual pursuits. Ava’s pile of notebooks is becoming unwieldy. Beatrice’s understanding of the divine evolves day by day. 

They find an indoor space to train on the weekends. Ava is getting better. It is getting to be less a therapy session and a little more actual sparring session, though Beatrice’s skills were always well ahead of Ava’s. They speak to Camila a few times over a Skype call. She has dyed her hair flame red. She’s good enough at her job that the museum doesn’t have anything to say about it. 

They ask whether she’s spoken with Mary and Lilith. She becomes a little uncomfortable. “Not in a while,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t, but I worry. Please let me know if you hear from them.”

Emerging from a Sunday mass on a chilly morning, Mary stands outside, her eyes scanning the crowd for them. She has traded in her shotguns for a backpack, but she’s still a tall, dark figure in a trench coat, and will probably never lose the aura of the tough, gruff soldier that they knew back when. 

They hurry over to greet her, and she embraces each of them. She checks out Ava’s cane. “You after Mother Superion’s job?”

Ava chuckles. 

“Should we go for some lunch?” Beatrice suggests. 

But Mary is not in a cheerful mood. “No time for that,” she says. 

“Why?” 

“I need your help.” 

Over savory crepes and coffee that Mary says she doesn’t want but eats anyway, she explains. After the order disbanded and they left what she refers to as “the life”, she and Lilith took up together and finally tried to have what they hadn’t been able to before. But over the last two years, Lilith seemed to be getting progressively sicker, and they couldn’t figure out why. She wouldn’t see a doctor, wouldn’t even make the trip to Arc-Teq, because she didn’t trust anyone. She was spiraling into a dark place, and Mary struggled to keep hold of her, until she disappeared one night without warning. She left behind an anguished note saying that she could no longer burden Mary with her care. 

Camila was right to have been worried. 

“What was wrong with her?”

“Let’s just say whatever it was exactly, I think she was right. I think a doctor couldn’t help her.”

“You think it was to do with the Tarask.”

Ava goes quiet at this. The guilt of Lilith’s sacrifice still hangs over her even now.

“She was different when she came back, we all saw that much. She was fighting the good fight with a little piece of Hell inside her,” Mary says. 

“How can we help?” Ava finally asks. 

“Well, there’s a reason why I’m here.” Mary looks at both of them. “I think she’s here. In Paris.”

Beatrice puzzles over this. “Why?”

“Well, I still got my network. I still got a lot of priests that remember what we did for them, even if the hierarchy wants to pretend like we never happened. So, I’ve been talking to people. They think it’s likely she came here.”

Mary is being unusually cryptic. “What was her sickness like, exactly?” Beatrice asks.

“Fevers. Hair turning white, then not too long ago, started falling out. Started to look like she was wasting away but she kept getting stronger.” She looks between them significantly.

Ava leans forward and asks, “When did she disappear?”

“About two months ago.”

Ava and Beatrice exchange a look. Ava looks back at Mary. “Well, that’s around the time when this thing started happening.” She takes Mary’s hand across the table and with a little frown of concentration, she makes it glow softly for just long enough that only they see it. 

Mary draws a sharp breath. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know. But it can’t be a coincidence that you think she’s here and that it started around the same time that she disappeared.”

Mary grunts. “Well I guess you can take the girl outta the life, but you can’t take the life outta the girl.”

“Same goes double for you, I’m guessing,” Ava replies. 

Beatrice looks at her old friend, and recognizes the grief in her face. She’s been through too much; losing her mother, losing Shannon, and now Lilith. “We were all in the life,” she says softly. “It makes us sisters for as long as we live.” She touches Mary’s arm, which seems to surprise her; Beatrice remembers that she was not always so free with her physical gestures. 

Mary nods. The quiet understanding settles between them. They know they are bound together and that they are about to plunge into something that only they and a handful of others like them could ever begin to understand. “Why Paris?” Beatrice asks again.

“Well, Father Marconi in Venice thinks it’s not about Paris, but what’s underneath it.”

Beatrice thinks she understands. “There are a lot of tunnels down there,” she says quietly.

Ava holds up her hand again. “So maybe… maybe this is… a GPS.”

They look at each other. They pay the check and go back to Beatrice and Ava’s flat. 

They raise Camila on a Skype call and ask her how quickly she can get to Paris. She wants to know why they need her. “We think Lilith is here,” Mary says. 

“And we think she needs our help,” Beatrice says. 

“Four hours tops, less if I can get a charter,” Camila says immediately.

Mary unpacks shotguns from her backpack. They are a smaller species than the last time they were all together.

“Svelte,” Ava jokes. 

Mary shrugs. “Subtler in my old age, what can I tell you.”

Beatrice is ready for anything. She may not have the old swords, but she has all her knives and her staff. 

Ava watches them packing up. After a moment of thought, she packs one thing and one thing only, apart from her cane: a heavy wool blanket. 

Mary looks at her quizzically. 

“There’s a good chance if we find her, she’s gonna need it.” 

Two hours later, they meet Camila at Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy. They exchange brief hugs. It’s late, and the gate they intend to enter through is locked. 

“So,” Camila says warily, looking at the looming iron gates that lead down into the city. “The Catacombs, huh?”

“In this life or the next, right?” Mary says.

Ava smiles at them all. “This life  _ is _ the next.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band is back together and Camila steals a scene or two.

Camila passes out night vision goggles to everyone. Of course she would come prepared. 

She defeats the locks in a matter of seconds. “Damn, girl,” Mary comments.

“Hey, I was in the same black ops group you were,” Camila chuckles. 

It will be the last time that any of them smiles for a little while. 

Beatrice has never been down to the catacombs, but has read a great deal about them. Still, the skulls interspersed with the stones in the walls chills her. One hand is at her waist, ready to extend her staff into action if necessary. The other holds onto Ava’s as they move forward into the deep warrens of tunnels. Ava’s free hand glows softly, and as they descend into the less traveled parts, it brightens. 

“I just want to say,” Ava whispers, “that this is the creepiest shit I’ve seen in a long, long time.” 

“I dunno,” Camila whispers, “it’d be a good place for a goth show or something.” 

They all stop walking for a second and look at her. 

“What? Like I’m the only one thinking it?” 

“Yeah, Cam,” Mary says. “You’re the only one.” 

They follow the tunnel into the depths, led by the glow of Ava’s hand, that steadily brightens as they push further in. The walls become denser with skulls and now bones, even occasionally full skeletons, interlocking with the stones and cement. After some time, they encounter a wall of thick wooden planks. Obviously the city decided that this was quite far enough for tourists to go wandering. They stand there looking at it for a minute, wondering what to do. 

“You’re sure we’re going that way?” Beatrice asks.

Ava nods. “Yeah, this is right. It feels right.” 

“Too bad you don’t still have the Halo, you could blow that right open,” Mary says.

Ava shrugs. “I’m a human night light who can beat people up with a cane. That’s it.”

“Cam, you got dynamite?” Mary asks.

Camila scoffs. “Do I have dynamite? Of course I have dynamite. If we wanna blow the wall out and cave the tunnel in on ourselves and join the corpses down here.” She takes off her large backpack and produces a fireman’s axe. “Sorry, we gotta do this the old fashioned way.” Smiling, she hands it to a disgruntled Mary, who hacks away at the wall for several minutes in a cacophony of splintering wood. Once she has opened it up enough for them to fit through, Ava leads them carefully through the jagged hole. 

On the other side, Camila puts her hand out for the axe. Mary holds it up. “Nah, I think I’m gonna hold onto it if you don’t mind.”

Camila shrugs. They follow Ava down into the dark. The path seems to descend a little more as they go. Suddenly, Ava stops. 

“Did you hear that?” 

“Hear what?” says Mary.

“Like, a rattling sound?” 

Camila confirms it. They all grip their weapons tighter. 

“She’s definitely here,” Ava says, holding up her hand, which by now is becoming very bright, “but I don’t think whatever that sound was came from her.” 

“Lilith!” Mary calls.

Beatrice shushes her. “We don’t know what else is down here.” 

They hold still for a moment, the four of them, listening as the rattling starts up again, trying to determine from the strange echoes where it’s coming from. Beatrice thinks it sounds like it’s from up ahead. “It’s getting closer,” she says. 

She pulls out her staff and the spring releases, snapping it to its full length. The light pouring off of Ava’s hand casts far enough down the tunnel that they can see, now: a single skeleton, upright and animated, is lurching toward them. It must be hundreds of years old. There’s no evidence of any remaining flesh clinging to those bones, no trace smells of rot. Whatever tissue there was has been gone a long time. Just some musty air coming their way. 

Beatrice places herself in front of Ava. Adrenaline explodes into her veins. She’s not a librarian at Sorbonne anymore. She’s a warrior nun again. The staff spins lightly in her hands and she knocks its head clean off, sending the empty skull rolling back down the way it came. 

“Home run,” Ava says, trying to make light, but the entirely rational fear is evident in her voice. 

“Alright,” Beatrice says, releasing a breath. “So, that’s a thing, apparently.” She looks at Ava. “You’re sure she’s down that way?” 

“Positive.” 

They continue their descent. It’s not possible for it to get any darker. The light from Ava’s hand penetrates just enough of the inky blackness to allow them to see where they’re going. There’s no way to know how far down they are. Beatrice has been mentally keeping track of their path in case they have to make a hasty retreat. 

Eventually, the tunnel opens into a large cavern, the walls honeycombed with open resting places, slabs full of ossified skeletons. Given their last encounter, all Beatrice can see is a potential army waiting to be unleashed. 

Ava’s hand is blazing. 

In the middle of the cavern sits a figure, hunched in darkness, gaunt, in tattered robes. A pair of leathery wings sprouts from its back. 

“Oh, shit,” Ava whispers.

Beatrice is too much in combat head to feel grief, but knows that she ought to. 

“Lil!” Mary cries, and she starts to run forward.

Beatrice grabs her arm. “Wait.” 

A rattling, the same rattling as before, but on a greater scale, moves like a wave around the cavern. “Shit, shit, shit,” Camila grumbles, and draws a sidearm and starts detaching something else from her utility belt. 

The skeletons are descending from their perches, lurching toward them. A pair insert themselves between them and Lilith. Beatrice and Ava look at each other, and then each knock one of their skulls off and watch them roll away. 

But the descent of the swarm will come fast if they don’t figure something out. 

“Just go away,” Lilith’s voice cries raggedly. 

“Not gonna happen,” Mary shouts back, and swings her ax at another skeleton that approaches her with its frozen grin.

“You can’t take me. They’ll stop you!” 

Beatrice and Ava are now both fighting off small groups of the rattling assailants. Camila is taking accurate headshots and occasionally blowing out a spine or two. So far, they’ve got it under control. But for how much longer? 

“But why, Lil?” Mary’s voice is so anguished. Beatrice knows that anguish. 

“They’re protecting me!” Lilith sobs. 

Ava suddenly looks at Beatrice. “I’m going over there,” she declares. 

“What?” 

“You guys cover me. I’m going over there.” 

“That’s insane!” Beatrice shouts, looking at the gathering mob of rattling bones. 

“I know, but I think… I think they’re responding to her fear.” She swings her cane upwards into the jaw of another approaching skeleton. “If I’m right, I might be the only one who can help her and stop all this.” 

They exchange an urgent look. 

“Trust me,” Ava adds. 

“I do,” Beatrice answers. And she dives into the fray. “Alright!” she calls out to the others. “Ava is going over there, we’ve got to keep her path clear and cover her, alright?” 

Camila and Mary look at her like she’s crazy, but they trust, because that’s what they are to each other, even after all this time. 

Camila hurls flashbangs toward the perimeter of the room, to slow the tide of the dead coming down from the walls. They knot together and push toward Lilith in the center of the room. They continue fighting the seemingly endless supply of specters coming at them. 

But Beatrice hears Ava’s voice behind her, and is hyper-aware of her conversation with Lilith:

“Hey. Hey, it’s me. It’s us.” 

“You can’t take me. They won’t let you.” 

“You’re afraid, I know. You’re afraid we won’t love you like this, but that’s not how it works. Mary says you can take the girl out of the life but you can’t take the life out of the girl. We left it, but it didn’t leave us. Look, we’re all here. We came for you.” 

“Why would you?”

“You gave your life for me. You think I’m going to forget that? Look, Mary loves you, and Camila and Bea love you, but I’m here because I get it the most. I’ve been dead too. I know what it is to die and come back and not know yourself anymore.” 

“You came back better.” 

“Maybe you did too. I think you’re much stronger than me. You gotta stop being afraid of us. You gotta stop. That’s the only way these bony fuckers are going to lay off, right?” 

Lilith sobs and doesn’t say anything else. 

“Look. Look at my hand. See that? It’s like that because of you. Because you’re here. Because you needed us. I think the Halo left something behind in me, and whatever it was, it was keeping you from getting sick when we were all together. It was keeping you from… from this.” 

“Can you wrap this up, Ava?!” Mary shouts, swinging her axe furiously at the onslaught. 

“She’s working on it!” Beatrice shouts back. 

“You gotta be with us to be okay,” Ava goes on. “With  _ me _ , right? Maybe you and I didn’t understand each other, but we were sisters anyway. You taught me more than you know. And look, we’re connected. See? Let us bring you home.” 

The mob stops, stands motionless for an agonizing moment, staring with dark, empty eye sockets. Beatrice doesn’t want to take her eyes off of them, but after what feels like an eternity, they all clatter to the floor in piles. 

Lilith is sobbing on Ava’s shoulder. Beatrice finally has a moment to see how deep her metamorphosis went; how gaunt her face has become, how much of her hair has fallen out, and those wings, Mother of Heaven, those wings. Her heart aches. 

Mary throws her axe down and runs to Lilith’s side. Camila kicks the nearest pile of bones, spits on it, and then comes to join them. They huddle around her. Ava’s hand glows brightly against Lilith’s back, and Beatrice wants to cry when she sees her spine jutting through her robe. 

Beatrice can’t find words to express how proud she is of Ava, of her intuition in figuring out what needed to happen, and her ability to reach Lilith in a moment of chaotic darkness. Ava brings the jazz with her everywhere she goes, it seems, because here they are; five people playing five different things at the same time, and it has worked. They are together.

Ava opens up her backpack, takes out the wool blanket, and wraps it around Lilith’s shuddering shoulders. “Come on,” she says, “let’s get her the fuck out of here.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Beatrice and Ava’s flat is barely large enough for the five of them to stand around and drink coffee, let alone to sprawl out in the aftermath of their righteous trouble. They lay Lilith down in the bedroom, and Ava lays down with her. Beatrice sits at the small kitchen table with Camila while Mary lingers at the foot of the bed. 

Over the next twelve hours, most of what happens is that Ava and Lilith sleep. Occasionally they wake up, and Beatrice can hear snatches of conversation between them. 

“Do you remember everything?”

“Yes.” 

“Do you feel any better?”

“I don’t know. Do I still have wings?” 

“I think so. I’m too tired, I can’t move to check.” 

“Yeah,” Mary supplies, sounding weary, “you still got ‘em.”

Silence falls as they go back to sleep. 

Camila gets herself a hotel for the night, and the next day comes back and announces that she has rented a three bedroom airbnb for them in Montmartre. They smuggle Lilith into it under cover of dark, and it becomes the infirmary for whatever process is going on with Ava and Lilith. 

Beatrice checks on Ava and Lilith from time to time. The glow in Ava’s hand increases, subsides, goes out for a while. They sleep. They wake. It comes back, slowly, increases, then subsides, and goes out. And then they sleep. It’s a cycle. Mary and Beatrice take turns sleeping and getting food into them. At first Lilith doesn’t want anything, but after a day or so, Mary plies her with a chocolate croissant. 

Beatrice worries that Ava is putting herself in danger. But Ava waves her off. This is the only choice, she says. 

It takes a few days for Lilith to start looking better, but she does, a little. She begins to eat more; soon she can sit up and take soup without Mary holding the spoon. 

Camila has to return to Vienna because she can’t take any more days off right now, but she tells them they can stay in the Airbnb as long as they need to, and that she can be there in a few hours anytime they need her. 

Beatrice sees that whatever is happening with Ava and Lilith, it’s an exchange of energy. She wonders whether this small amount of energy is the Halo remnant recharging itself, as the Halo did, or if it’s coming from Ava herself. She wonders whether Ava will emerge on the other side of this with everything intact. 

She doesn’t express this worry. She already knows Ava couldn’t be talked out of it regardless of the cost.

But Lilith has to ask. Beatrice hears them talking one morning. 

“What if this hurts you?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve had eleven incredible years that I never was supposed to have. Given what I owe you, the risk is totally acceptable.”

The wings have wilted a little, for lack of a better word, but show no sign of disappearing. Lilith is improving, slowly. Color is returning to her face. 

December snows are dusting the cobblestones and street lamps of Paris, and Christmas lights are starting to go up in the shops and sparkle down the boulevards. The trees along the Champs d’Elysees are studded with golden pinpricks. At no time of the year is the name City of Lights more apt for Paris than now. 

Beatrice spends her days working while Mary takes over the care and feeding of both their lovers. Beatrice comes home, cooks for the four of them, and then spends time in the bed with Ava and Lilith, curled up behind Ava. She doesn’t know whether it helps anyone but herself. Thank God Camila booked a place with a king size bed. 

The convalescing pair start to get up and move around more as the days progress, but there’s still a lot of napping off and on, with the light in Ava’s hand rising and dimming.

About two and a half weeks into this, Beatrice’s mother calls. 

“You know my terms,” Beatrice says. “And I’m in the middle of a family crisis right now.” 

Her mother pauses. “Is something wrong with your… with Ava?”

“It’s complicated. She’ll be alright, I think. What did you want?” 

“I’d like you to come to London. For Christmas. I was going to suggest you… bring her with you, if she’s well enough.” 

Beatrice doesn’t know what to say. This is a huge effort from her mother. “What’s Father’s condition?” 

“In hospital,” she says a bit too briskly. “The chemotherapy continues, but the cancer is aggressive. He wouldn’t be joining us for Christmas dinner, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Beatrice frowns. She certainly can’t be expected to leave Ava and Lilith right now. The process of what’s taking place is slow, and even two weeks from now, she’s not sure what their condition will be. But even if she could bring them, what would be expected of her? “So you’re proposing that we come for Christmas at Knightsbridge, I take it, and then what? I visit Father by myself?” 

Her mother hesitates. “I’ll leave that up to you.” 

“You understand that this isn’t my decision alone to make. I’ll let you know.” 

She hangs up with a heavy sigh, and Mary looks at her, concerned. “What’s all that?” 

So Beatrice explains the developments between her and her mother. 

“Actually,” Mary says, “maybe we should all go.” 

Mary explains that she’s been speaking with her network of friendly clergy, and that she knows a priest just outside London who doesn’t think that the wings will disappear on their own, but served as a surgeon for the OCS many years ago and is willing to employ his surgical skills to remove them. After watching this slow recovery, Mary’s thinking he may be right. They’ve shrunken a little, but their vanishment doesn’t seem imminent. 

Lilith, when she wakes, seems panicked at the notion of surgery. 

“He knows what he’s dealing with,” Mary assures her. 

“But it’s just cosmetic,” Lilith protests. “It doesn’t make… what’s  _ inside me _ go away.”

Ava sits up. “Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to actually be able to walk around Paris in daylight at some point?” 

Lilith looks as if the thought has only just occurred to her. 

“It’s Christmastime,” Beatrice adds. 

“The Boul-Mich is all lit up,” Mary says, “and Paris is real pretty with a little snow. Be a shame to miss it.” 

Lilith’s face has regained some color, and her cheeks look less sunken. When Beatrice helps her into the shower lately, she has noticed that the bones in her spine and shoulders are not so pronounced as they were a few weeks ago. She’s not “better”, but she’s improved. The idea of normalcy seems tantalizing to Lilith now. She decides it’s worth at least going to speak with him. 

After much discussion amongst themselves, Beatrice phones her mother. “As I said,” she begins, “the situation is complicated. If you want me there, there will be four of us. We’ll need to be lodged. I’m sure the two downstairs bedrooms will be sufficient. If you want an explanation for why it needs to be this way, I’ll give you the truth, but remember what I spent a decade of my life doing, and consider that you may be far happier not knowing what it is.”

The silence of her mother’s hesitation seems endless. How badly does she really want this? “You and Ava,” her mother says, “and who would the other two be?”

“Sisters of ours from the Order.” 

“A house full of ex-nuns at Christmas,” her mother muses, “I wonder whether I’ll be blessed or cursed for that.” 

“Was… that a joke, Mother?” 

“Don’t get excited. I’ll need a few years to work on the next one.” 

“Are you… agreeing to this arrangement?”

“Impossibly, I suppose I am.”

Bemused, Beatrice hangs up. 

“So?” Mary asks. “Are we having French food for Christmas or English food?”

Beatrice feels queasy. She can’t help thinking maybe this is all a dreadful idea. She didn’t honestly expect her mother to say yes, after all: her mother didn’t even want to grapple with the notion of Ava as recently as a month ago and now she’s inviting her for Christmas dinner along with two perfect strangers? “We’re having whatever cuisine my mother hires a chef to prepare for us.”

Mary seems entertained by the idea of a fancy Christmas in London. The conversation was too much effort for Lilith, who grunts and rolls over to go back to sleep on the couch. Ava sits up, scribbling in her notebook, but when Beatrice peers over her shoulder to see what she’s writing, it’s just doodles of Christmas trees and what looks like Big Ben and the London Eye – Ava is not much of an artist, so she can’t be sure. 

“Are you ready to do this?” Beatrice asks softly. “Christmas with my mother?”

Ava gives her the crooked smile that has always melted her heart. “Not even a little. But I figure it can’t possibly go worse than the first time I met her, right?” 

All Beatrice can say is, “Ssssh.”

  
  
  



	11. Chapter 11

They fly into Heathrow and rent a van. 

“Vans again,” Ava says, as Mary helps her into the back. “I’m having flashbacks.” 

Beatrice doesn’t say anything about the fact that it’s a struggle for Ava, that she  _ needs _ Mary to help her get in. She hopes the deterioration is temporary.

But Ava says that it doesn’t matter. Lilith still has her wings, but her hair has started to grow back. She wears one of Ava’s beanies, because it’s still not in any way presentable, but she looks less ill. Beatrice smiles as she listens to Ava and Lilith quietly bantering back and forth in the back in between their naps. 

“No offense, Lil, but I could totally take you. I’ve gotten really deadly with this cane, I’ll have you know.” 

“I’ve got you for upper body strength, though.” 

“Maybe, but I feel like those wings would slow you down.” 

“In theory, I should be able to fly.” 

“In theory? Have you actually seen them work?” 

“Shut up.”

It’s the day before Christmas Eve, and the plan is to visit Mary’s priest friend, Father Colin, before going to Beatrice’s mother’s house. Father Colin is a ruddy man with a square jaw and an unruly mop of white hair. He looks like he’s seen it all, but even he coughs to cover a little gasp of surprise when they unveil Lilith’s wings. 

“Well, well,” he says. “You weren’t kidding, Mary.” 

“I don’t have a sense of humor, Father,” Mary says. 

He inspects them, asks if Lilith can feel various pokes and prods. She reports that she can. He takes X-rays. “This is not a small task,” he says finally. “I could do it, but it would be a major surgery. On the order of a double amputation.” 

Everyone pales a little when he says this. Beatrice was thinking of them as something that didn’t belong there, something that ought to just snap right off. Father Colin’s words shake her. 

“Let’s just go ahead,” Lilith says. “I have to.” Her face is shaded with the same desperation it was when they found her in those catacombs. 

Father Colin doesn’t seem excited about it, but he tells one of the sisters to begin prepping for the surgery. 

He makes them all get scrubbed up and masked while he gets the instruments ready. Lilith is on her stomach on the table, the big black wings retracted and draping down either side. Mary sits on one side of her head, Ava on the other, looking at her with wordless concern. A nurse comes in and administers a local injection at the sites where the wings connect to Lilith’s shoulder blades. 

Beatrice stands over Ava’s shoulder, anxiously watching Father Colin and his nurses move into position. She notices a tear slip down Lilith’s face. Ava nods at Mary, who places a hand on Lilith’s back, between the wings. “Hey,” Ava says softly, “are you sure about this?” 

“No,” Lilith sniffles. “I’m not.” 

“You’re not afraid of the surgery, are you.” It sounds like Ava already knows the answer. 

“These are part of me now,” Lilith says, weakly raising the wings a little and lowering them again. “I can feel them. They’ve got my nerve endings, my muscles. If you wounded them, I’d feel it. I just…”

“I get it,” Ava says.  _ So gently, _ Beatrice thinks. “I’m a little different now, too, because I gave up the Halo. I’m not the same. But what it left me with, is part of me now. The way it changed me, it makes my life a little harder but I’m not sure I would wave a magic wand and fix it if I could.”

“But you’re still human,” Lilith answers, and her voice shakes. 

Mary comes around to the other side, and wipes a tear Lilith’s cheek. “From the look of it, baby girl, so are you.”

Lilith tilts her head to look up. 

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Ava says. 

“We love you as you are,” Beatrice tells her.

“Always will,” Mary adds.

They find Father Colin and tell him that they’re going to delay the operation for now. Nobody knows what that will mean in the long run, but it feels like the right decision. Pushing normalcy too fast might end up traumatizing Lilith more. 

Of course, this creates new problems. Showing up at Knightsbridge with two people who are convalescing is one matter. Showing up with a friend with wings is quite another. 

They stay the night in the rectory, courtesy of Father Colin. Mary’s anxiety is slightly less heavy than it was before they arrived. As Ava and Lilith sleep, Beatrice asks, “Do you feel alright about this choice?” 

Mary shrugs. “I want her as happy and comfortable as she can be. If that means the wings have to stay for now, then they stay.” She looks at Beatrice. “Ava’s really grown up.” There is so much weight, so much gratitude behind that observation.

Beatrice’s heart swells a little. “This was always who she was. She just needed time.” She sighs. “It’s a bit late now,” Beatrice says. “I’ll call Mother in the morning and let her know we won’t be coming.” 

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Lilith calls from the bed. 

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Mary scolds. 

“We are,” Ava pipes up. 

Beatrice chuckles. 

“We’re still going,” Lilith says firmly. 

“You still have wings,” Mary points out, as if Lilith has forgotten. 

“It’s inconvenient,” Lilith acknowledges, “but surely there must be a way around it.” 

Everyone falls quiet for a moment. Inconvenient, Beatrice thinks, is a gross understatement. Even though they’ll be staying in the downstairs bedrooms, which are separate from the main house, at some point Lilith will have to deal with Mother, and there’s simply no way to explain Lilith without letting her mother in on a truth that she’s already indicated she’d rather not know.

“Mad world,” Lilith says suddenly. 

Ava and Mary have no idea what this means, but Beatrice does. Lilith knows London as well as she does. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“It’s not,” Lilith huffs, “it’s brilliant.” 

“Um, listen,” Ava says, sitting up in bed, “usually I’m the one with the terrible ideas, so, does someone want to clue me in?”

Lilith sits up too. “Mad World. It’s a costume shop in Broadgate.” 

Ava immediately understands. “We all show up with costumes, and then Bea’s mother is none the wiser, right?” 

“See?” Lilith lightly punches Ava’s shoulder. “It’s brilliant.” 

“She’s been giving you some of her brain cells along with her leftover Halo energy, I see.” Mary is not amused. 

Still, they drive into Broadgate the following day, and Beatrice feels a stronger sense of homecoming than she expected. London will always be London, the place where she grew up. And at Christmastime, it’s a sea of lights and red ribbons and frosted trees and jolly Saint Nicks on every corner. The city is unapologetic in its love for Christmas. Suddenly, she hopes her mother has decided to opt for a traditional English Christmas dinner.

They find parking near the shop. Lilith, for obvious reasons, waits in the van. It takes some time to get what they came for, but they emerge with several bags, which they toss in the back of the van. Ava fishes one thing out and hands it to Lilith. “This is for you, to wear around if we go places.” 

Lilith inspects the heap of black cloth with white satin lining. “What is it?”

“It’s an opera cape. We figure if you retract your wings and put the cape on over them, you can walk around in the daytime.” 

“Bit dramatic,” Lilith comments.

Mary turns around enough to side eye both of them. “Since when is that a problem for you?” 

They arrive at Beatrice’s family home in Knightsbridge. The maid opens the door and her look of utter confusion diminishes only a little when she recognizes Beatrice. “Thought it was Christmas,” she remarks, “not Halloween.” 

“Happy Christmas, Hilly,” Beatrice says, giving her most beatific smile. 

Beatrice knows they are a sight: they found a black wig, some horns and a black robe for Lilith to wear, and her wings are comfortably unfurled from her back. Ava wears a pair of white, feathered wings, a wire halo, white robes, and has sprinkled herself with an amount of glitter they will probably all regret for the next several months. Beatrice, in a fit of pique, chose a nun’s costume. She half expects to get struck by lightning.

“So,” Hilly says, standing aside to let them in, “we’ve got a devil, an angel, a nun, and…” She looks Mary up and down twice. Mary is in her same long, black leather jacket. The only addition is a black leather cowboy hat. “...and you are?” 

“I’m God,” Mary deadpans.

“God’s a cowboy, is he?” 

“Yes,” Mary answers. “She is.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Hilly is serving wine to all four of them when Beatrice turns around and sees her mother in the parlor doorway, wearing an expression that Beatrice can’t quite read. 

“Costumes,” Mother says finally. She steps closer to Beatrice and asks quietly, “Is this also part of the business you’re so sure I’d rather not know?” 

Beatrice had many years to master her soft, saintly smile, and she deploys it on her mother now. “Lilith is quite sick, mother. We thought it would make her feel better if we were all a bit festive. You needn’t join us if you don’t feel like dressing up.” It strains the boundaries of not lying, but Beatrice decides that it’s good enough.

Her mother nods. “Yes, I think not.”

“Perhaps,” Beatrice suggests in her most pleasant, mild tones, “you should have Hilly get you a glass of wine as well.” 

“I’ve already had three in anticipation of your arrival, darling, that’s quite enough for now.” 

Beatrice introduces everyone, and her mother greets Ava awkwardly, but she’s not unkind. Beatrice wonders if three glasses of wine is the way to deal with her mother about everything. 

Hilly has made enough beef stew to feed an army, and they sit around the table in their ridiculous costumes, tucking in, drinking wine and laughing amongst themselves. They have too many private jokes for one group of friends, and Beatrice can’t help feeling awkward at how many fly past her mother and the fact that, due to the history behind them, she can’t really explain. 

But it’s Christmas Eve, and Beatrice is sitting in her family home at Lancelot Place for the first time since she joined the convent. Frost coats the windows, candle light gleams on the silverware, and laughter and chatter fills the air around the table. Her mother is adept enough at polite small talk, and so she asks each of them about their current occupations: Mary talks about her woodworking, Lilith discusses her intention to pursue a security consulting practice once she’s well, and Ava talks vaguely about her studying, reading, and writing. Beatrice is highly aware of the fact that her mother, rather than leveling barbs about Ava’s apparent lack of focus, simply chooses to ask Hilly for another glass of wine.

But her mother is also perceptive. Beatrice knows that it cannot escape her attention that the four of them are constantly, wholeheartedly supportive of one another. When Mary begins by saying simply, “I’m a carpenter,” Lilith breaks in with, “Don’t undersell it, Mary, you’re an  _ artisan _ , honestly.” When Ava says, “I’m just doing a lot of reading and writing,” Mary jumps in with, “You’re giving yourself the education you didn’t get when you were bedridden for your entire youth.” Beatrice’s mother wants to ask about this, but Beatrice shakes her head. _ No, we don’t want to talk about that, please. _ Her mother leaves off.

By the end of dinner, though, Lilith and Ava are both looking fairly wilted, and Beatrice and Mary spirit them off to the bedrooms downstairs. Once they’re situated in bed and headed in the direction of slumber, Mary produces a pack of cigarettes and announces that she’s going for a walk in the neighborhood to see a little bit of it. 

Left alone, Beatrice and her mother are finally, awkwardly, able to sit by the fire and talk. 

“You all seem very close,” her mother ventures. 

“We’ve been through a lot together.” 

“What’s… Lilith’s health issue?” 

Beatrice sighs. “You’d rather not know specifics. But we very nearly had to accompany her to a double amputation.” 

“Good God.” 

“Indeed.” 

Her mother tries again. “And Ava? You implied that her health was also an issue when we spoke, and then Mary mentioned something about her being bedridden in her youth?” 

“She  _ was _ bedridden in her youth. It’s a miracle she’s not any longer.” 

“But her health now?” 

“It’s fine. She’s simply exhausted because she’s doing the lion’s share of the work in caring for Lilith.” 

Her mother puzzles this. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression that Mary was Lilith’s...” She’s obviously been reading something or speaking to someone because she’s trying to make sure she chooses the right word. “...her partner?” 

“She is.”

“So why is the lion’s share of it on Ava?” 

“Ava has a gift for it.” 

Her mother’s eyes narrow, and even in her comfortably inebriated state, she knows when Beatrice is leaving things out. “There’s something you’re not telling me.” 

“I told you that would be the case. There are things you’d rather not know.” 

“I’m not a crystal goblet, you know. I won’t shatter if you tell me something unusual.” 

“You already have, many times over.”

“What kind of things?” her mother presses. “Are they…” She struggles now. “...are they lesbian things?”

Beatrice can’t help laughing. “No, Mother, but you… please trust in my prudence. They’re things I can’t ask you to carry.” 

“I’m not nearly sodden enough for this conversation.” Hilly has gone home, so her mother gets up, walks heavily into the kitchen, returns with a new bottle of wine, and pours herself a glass. They talk about other things for a while; her father’s health, the current activities of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, and so forth, while her mother consumes a heroic amount of merlot. “Alright,” she announces a little while later, “tell me the truth. Everything, Beatrice.” 

“With the state you’re in, you won’t remember it.” 

Her mother wags a finger at her wildly. “That! Is the point!” 

“What?”

“You may speak freely. See what it feels like to tell your Mum the truth for a change. It doesn’t matter what you say, because I’ll likely have forgotten it come morning.” Her speech has lost some of its crispness.

Beatrice frowns. This exercise is odd, and quite unlike her mother. Not the drinking; she’s seen her mother overdo it a bit in times of high stress. But the persistence, the demand to  _ know things _ . That’s new. Alright, she thinks, caution to the wind. A month ago she was in the catacombs of Paris, fighting a skeleton army. Telling her mother the truth should be child’s play by comparison. 

She looks her mother dead in the eye and says, “Ava used to be a quadriplegic as the result of a car accident, until she had an angel’s halo implanted in her back which healed her and gave her special abilities. Lilith was impaled by a demon and was beginning to transform into one, but the power of the halo in Ava’s back prevented it from occurring. Since we parted ways two years ago, Lilith has been slowly transforming, but while Ava gave up the Halo two years ago, she has some remnants of the halo’s power left. She’s been helping Lilith to heal and reverse the process, but it’s slow. And the reason we stopped off before we came here is that Lilith sprouted wings, and we were going to have them removed, but the surgery seemed too major an undertaking at a time when she’s still quite vulnerable. So we all bought Halloween costumes, so that Lilith could turn up with her wings out and not feel out of place.” 

Her mother looks at her for what feels like several minutes, blinking, as she processes all of this. Finally, she responds, “Bollocks.”

“I assure you, it isn’t.”  


“Well then, that’s lovely of you all, with the costumes. It’s like those children, when one of them gets cancer and they all shave their heads.” 

Beatrice laughs. “Yes, I suppose.” 

“Alright. I’ve had quite enough of this nonsense. Help your Mum up to bed, will you?” 

“Of course.”

Beatrice helps her up the stairs, and marvels at how heavily she leans for such a small woman. She helps her change for bed, and tucks her in as if she was a child. 

“Thank you, Beatrice.” 

Beatrice sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking at her mother. Only now, in the dim light of the bedside table lamp, does she absorb how much her mother has actually aged. 

“She’s very pretty, your Ava.”

“She is. But she’s also brave and clever and a deeply kind, caring person.”

“Brave,” her mother repeats. “You both say that about each other.”

“We fought side by side for several years.”

Her mother makes a vaguely approving sound. “Still odd for me to think of you as a soldier.”

“After all those taekwondo lessons you and Father paid for?”

Her mother grunts. “Tell me about your work,” she mumbles, closing her eyes. 

So Beatrice talks at length about the work she does for the Sorbonne, translating texts and cataloging their extensive collection of antiquities. She is somewhere in the middle of expounding on the inscriptions found on the back of a three thousand year old piece of Greek pottery when she stops, satisfied that her mother has gone to sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Day 🎄

Beatrice wakes on Christmas morning curled around Ava. Ava and Lilith seemed well enough that they agreed last night that the couples should finally be in their respective beds together. 

“Happy Christmas,” Beatrice mumbles against Ava’s soft cheek. 

“Mm,  _ Merry _ Christmas, weirdo,” Ava sighs, still sleepy. “It’s too bad I’m still too wrung out, I’d wanna unwrap you.” 

“Not in my mother’s house, you wouldn’t.” 

“ _ Especially _ in your mother’s house, I would.” 

Hilly has the day off, so the four of them rise and by the time Beatrice’s mother emerges, quite hung over, coffee and tea have been brewed, and the table is loaded with a big tray of scrambled eggs, a pile of sausages, a bowl of beans, and a pile of french toast taller than Beatrice’s mother. “Good morning, Mother. Happy Christmas.” 

Her mother rubs her eyes and looks around. 

“Dig in, Bea’s mom,” Mary says, gesturing to the table. Beatrice smiles at the way Mary says “Bea’s mom,”, the way small children do when they address their friends’ parents. “We made enough for everyone.”

“Everyone and the Turkish army,” her mother agrees, and sits down to eat without further comment. 

In the interest of keeping up their ruse, Mary is in her flannel pajamas but wears her cowboy hat, Ava is in sweat shorts, a tee shirt, and her angel wings, and Lilith troubled herself with the robe and horns. Beatrice’s mother doesn’t say anything, but sits down gratefully and eats what they’ve set out. Beatrice puts some Tylenol next to her tea cup.

After breakfast, a few presents are exchanged; her mother seems relieved that Beatrice is wearing regular clothes again, because she can now give her daughter things like cashmere sweaters and Hermes scarves again. Lilith and Mary have what seem like fairly gentle, private exchanges off in the drawing room. Ava, at some point, pulls Mother aside and presents her with a cloth bound journal. Some quiet conversation ensues, and Beatrice sees Ava’s hand glow softly for just a moment as she touches Mother’s shoulder. 

“What was that about?” Beatrice asks.

“It was between me and her,” Ava says. 

The doorbell rings at noon. Mother thinks it must be the chef, and goes to open the door. 

It’s not the chef. It’s Camila, standing there in a bright green wool coat, her flame-red curls dusted with snowflakes. Beatrice gasps. “Camila! What are you doing here?”

Mother clears her throat. “Another friend of yours, Beatrice?” She looks back at Camila. “So, what are you supposed to be? An elf?” 

Camila looks confused. 

“We’re all wearing costumes,” Beatrice explains, “to cheer Lilith up. She’s wearing one too.  _ Wings _ .”

“Oh. OH. No,” Camila explains cheerfully, “this is just my hair.” 

Beatrice runs over and hugs her, and then ushers her in. “But… what are you doing here?” 

Camila sighs. “Well, you know Christmas Day isn’t the big thing with my family, it’s Christmas Eve, and I hopped on a charter to Paris after dinner to surprise you guys, but you weren’t there. So I texted Mary, and she told me you guys were with Bea’s mom.” She stops to take a breath, and turns to Mother. “Hi, Bea’s mom. I’m Camila.” 

“Did Mary give you the address?” Beatrice asks. 

“Uh, no? I found it? Because I’m good? At finding things? I swear it’s like you guys forget I did the same work you did for ten years.” 

“Ah, another ex-nun, then, I suppose,” Mother surmises. 

“Yeah! Anyway, I’m not gonna stay, I don’t want to impose, but I just wanted to surprise you all and say hi.” 

Ava comes out into the foyer, leaning heavily on her cane. “Oh my dog! Cam!!” 

“You chartered a flight from Lisbon to Paris and then another one from Paris to here, I assume, to  _ say hi? _ ” Beatrice demands as Camila and Ava hug each other. 

Camila grins. “Yeah. No big deal. I just couldn’t let Christmas go by this year without seeing you guys.” 

Mother sighs. “You might as well stay. Chef Danny always makes too much.”

The front door still hangs open, and the chef arrives with two assistants. Not long after, the smells of Peking duck, lobster xiao long bao and Cantonese quail with XO sauce are drifting out of the kitchen. Mary disappears in after them and helps. 

“Father would have probably insisted on a turkey,” Beatrice observes. 

“Well, your father’s not here.” 

Mother seems to have resigned herself to hosting Beatrice’s new family, even if she’s not entirely comfortable or comprehending of them. Beatrice takes her aside to thank her. Her mother seems a little surprised by this. 

“Have you given any thought to whether you’re going to visit with your father? I plan to stop by after dinner.” 

Ah, yes. Her mother really wanted that all along, so her attempts at generosity must be framed in that light. “Do I have to lie to him?” 

Her mother looks at her. “As I said. I’ll leave that decision to you. You’re an adult.” 

“You want me to, though.” 

Her mother considers this for a very long time. “I want you to do what you feel is best for yourself and your life going forward. I don’t know how vindictive he’ll be at this stage of things nor how aggressive he’ll try to be about preventing you from getting anything out of the estate.”

“I told you. I don’t care about that.” 

“I just want to be certain that you’re taken care of, regardless. You and your… Ava.”

Beatrice glances over at where they sit in front of the living room window, Camila playing Christmas songs on the piano and everyone sitting around, caroling. Ava, in rumpled sleep clothes and angel wings, is singing at the top of her lungs, and Beatrice can’t help smiling. This joyful, unruly creature is hers. Her Ava. She knows her mother only refers to her as  _ your Ava _ because she can’t quite bring herself to say  _ your partner _ or  _ your girlfriend _ or Heaven forbid  _ your lover _ , but still, Beatrice likes the sound of it. Perhaps better than any of those. “What did she give you earlier?” 

“Something to read. When I’m ready.” 

Beatrice frowns. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” her mother says with a wry smile. “I’m not ready.”

Beatrice pushes the decision about seeing her father until after dinner, but she’s committed to the idea by the time they’re through the faux shark fin soup. 

“So,” she announces, pouring some more wine for herself, “I’m going to visit my father in hospital after dinner. You all can feel free to remain here. I won’t be long.” 

“Oh shit,” slips out of Camila’s mouth before her hand flies up to cover it. 

“It’ll be fine,” Beatrice insists. 

“We’ll go with you,” Ava immediately says, squeezing her leg under the table. 

Beatrice imagines the lot of them pouring into her father’s hospital room, and for a moment is entertained by the thought. 

“Not all of us,” Lilith says, “perhaps just Ava and myself.” 

Ava smirks, for some reason. She waggles her eyebrows at Lilith. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Lil?” 

Beatrice has gotten to know Ava’s thought processes far too well over the years, and now Lilith seems to have been infected by them. She knows that Lilith’s intention is likely to enter his hospital room and pull some glowing-eyed demonic nonsense to scare him into behaving himself. And again, the thought is entertaining, but Beatrice puts her hand up. “I already know what you two have in mind, and no. I’ll go by myself, with Mother. We’ll be back before you know it.”

They’re all a bit dubious, but agree to respect her wishes. Dessert passes by too quickly, and then Beatrice and her mother swaddle themselves against the cold. 

“Have you decided what you’re going to tell him?” her mother asks as they walk out into the chilly night. A car is waiting for them by the curb. 

“Yes.”

“And?” 

“I’m going to tell him the truth.”


	14. Chapter 14

Beatrice’s heart is overstuffed as she and her mother walk the halls of Royal Marsden. The impulse to shrink, to make herself as small as possible, rears its head, but she simply isn’t capable of it anymore. 

“They haven’t moved him to hospice yet,” her mother says, “but I expect that’s coming soon.” 

They visit him together. He sits propped in a bed, looking wasted in not so different a way as Lilith had looked. Beatrice presents him with a bouquet of red and white poinsettias. “Where did you find that today?” he wonders.

“The Muslim florist was open. Thank God.” It’s a jab at her father’s xenophobia and they all know it. She knows it wasn’t charitable. She internally chastises herself to do better. 

The conversation is warm enough, if perfunctory. Mother explains that Beatrice has several friends at the house. When he asks what they had, Mother lies and tells him they had turkey and cranberry, sausage and bread sauce. Beatrice doesn’t contradict her. 

“Bring me a plate tomorrow, would you?” 

“You know you’re not allowed to have that sort of thing,” her mother scolds. 

He grumbles under his breath, but says little else. He rambles a bit about Brexit for a while, and then asks to speak to Beatrice alone for a few moments. 

He looks frail. He sounds weak. Beatrice, in spite of all the anger buried under all of the hurt, still feels a wave of something, maybe pity? Maybe regret? 

“So, your mother finally enticed you home,” he says. “Who are your friends?”

“Friends from the order. We got used to spending holidays with one another. Mother was kind enough to invite them.” She decides not to wait to give him the opportunity to say something dreadful. “How long do they think you have?”

He shrugs a little. “They’ve not moved me to hospice yet, so they’re not saying.” 

She nods. He’s going to ask. She knows enough by now that he is. 

“So? Your mother hasn’t had much to say about what you’re doing with yourself in Paris.” 

“I work at the Sorbonne library, in the antiquities department.” 

“That’ll do,” he says. “And the rest of it?” 

“The rest of what?” 

“Have you fixed your little problem?” 

“Problem?” She knows what he means. She wants him to say it. 

“Your… confusion.” 

“I’m not confused.”

He looks at her for a moment. “You’re not answering my question.” 

“You haven’t asked it properly.” 

“Are you still mucking about with girls?”

“Girls? No, Father. I’m thirty. They’re women, now.” 

He smiles tightly. “Do you think you’re funny?” 

“Of course not, Father. Why would I joke about such things?”

She holds his gaze. She sees him, still angry, still concerned with his own image, still filled with disdain for anyone he decides isn’t as good as he is. “Has your mother explained my terms to you regarding the estate?” 

She balls her fists at her side. “She has. And I have a counter offer.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Terms of my own.” Her jaw works silently for a moment. She hears Ava’s voice in her head, the many times she has reassured her and loved her and comforted her. She draws herself up and speaks. “You have one daughter. Me. I am exceptional and brilliant and have a boundless capacity to love, and you may accept me as I am, or you may have no daughter at all.” 

“You would abandon me at the end of my life?” 

“You abandoned me at the start of mine. It seems fair.”

Something gurgles in his chest. He continues to hold his frozen, tight smile. “You don’t have any feelings whatsoever about being written out of the will?” 

“You’ve been threatening that since I was fourteen. By this time in my life, it lacks a bit of the intended sting.” She breathes deeply for a few moments. “Mother is making an effort to know me now. She doesn’t understand a great deal of what my life is or has been over the last two decades but… she’s trying. Perhaps if I had been anything more than a trophy for you, or an extension of yourself, you’d be interested in the same. But I have had ample opportunity to learn what family and love ought to look like. Consider, Father, that if you have to threaten or buy my love, that perhaps what you offer isn’t love at all.” 

He’s dying, and he’s angry, and he’s powerless. His threats have no teeth to her, and it drives him mad. Again, she feels a stab of pity. She thinks of how her mother sounded incredulous when they spoke on the telephone, talking about Ava:  _ Nobody talks that way. Nobody is that in love. _ She feels pity for her mother. Her parents’ marriage may have been rock solid, but it was built on social convention, class, expectation; a consumption partnership more than a marriage. Her mother had sounded wistful at the way Ava spoke, Beatrice realizes, because her father was never the sort of man to speak that way about his own wife. 

It occurs to her that this must be why her mother has been making an effort. At least, in some small part. Seeing someone love her daughter in a way that she has probably never been loved has shaken something in her thinking.

“Well then,” he says at length, “I suppose we have nothing more to discuss.” 

“I’ll visit again before I leave,” she offers. 

“Not necessary,” he says. He asks for her mother again. 

Beatrice waits downstairs in the lobby, her heart pounding, shivering despite not being especially cold. There was no other way to do this. No other way to say what needed to be said. And everything she said was true; she didn’t care whether he cut her out of his estate or not. There might be hope in the prospect of salvaging a relationship with her mother, but her father? Well, she told him her terms. They are non negotiable.

When her mother comes down, she’s looking put-upon. “Well, you’ve got him quite ruffled.” 

“I’m aware.” 

“He’s told me to contact his solicitor and change the will.” 

“As I expected.” 

Her mother pauses for a moment, and lifts her chin in a little act of defiance. “I won’t do it.” 

Beatrice opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. 

Her mother continues on. “He’s left me in charge of dealing with his solicitors on the matters of his estate. I’m not reassigning a single penny of your trust, and I’m not going to direct them to write you out of the will.” 

“Mum?” Beatrice gasps. “If he finds out–”

Her mother waves a gloved hand around vaguely. “He won’t. Let me worry about it.” 

“I made my choice,” Beatrice objects. 

She gestures toward the door. “Come now. The car is waiting for us.” 

Beatrice scurries after her mother. “If you were going to do all this anyway, then why on earth did you–?”

“Sh.” Her mother pauses as the driver opens the door for them and they slide in. Once situated, she continues. “I didn’t know that I was. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I heard everything you said to him.  _ Consider that if you have to threaten or buy my love, that perhaps what you offer isn’t love at all.  _ You’ve accumulated more wisdom than I have in the last fifteen or twenty years, whilst I wasn’t paying attention.”

The car sets into motion and Beatrice spends a moment digesting her mother’s words. 

“You know,” her mother says, “your Ava is correct. You  _ are _ brave.”

Beatrice’s mouth drops open. 

“Now,” her mother adds, as they glide through the streets of London back toward home, “that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly comfortable with everything. There are still plenty of things that I don’t understand and don’t need to hear about. I don’t imagine that I’m going to be reading whatever is in that little book of Ava’s for quite some while. I don’t know all of the right language for things, so I’ll make errors, and I expect you to be respectful when you correct me. No shaming if I mix up your alphabet soup. And lastly, I don’t need to hear a bloody thing about what you lot get up to in bed.”

“Don’t worry,” Beatrice says numbly, “I had no intention of sharing.” 

They arrive back home, and Beatrice is too shocked to say much of anything. She curls up on the couch in the drawing room with her head on Ava’s shoulder. Mother pours herself a wine, and then calls out to Lilith, who’s sitting on the other side of Ava, “Lilith? Where’s your Mary? I need to trouble her for a cigarette.” 

“Mother!” Beatrice exclaims. “Smoking?”

“Not a word,” her mother answers sharply.

A few minutes later, Mother stands outdoors in the lightly falling snow with Mary, wine in hand, smoking, and talking about God knows what. 

“How did it go?” Ava finally asks. 

Beatrice shakes her head. “I told him the truth. He didn’t like it. He said he’s writing me out of his estate entirely. Told my mother to take care of it. She told him she would, but told me she won’t.” A part of her wants to cry, but can’t.

Ava is bemused by this turn of events. 

Camila comes wandering in with a glass of eggnog. “So you still get the money?” 

“Not that I care, but yes.” 

“Don’t tell me how much,” Ava says quickly. “I don’t want to even know. I don’t want to think about it.” 

Beatrice shrugs. It’s all still too much. 

Ava tilts her head down and kisses the top of Beatrice’s head. “Are you okay?”

“It’s nice that my mother wants to make sure I get the money anyway. But honestly, I would be glad to give up the money if it meant him accepting me.” 

Ava wraps an arm around Beatrice’s shoulders. “I know. We all do our best. His best just isn’t too great. But look, you’ve got your mom, who… God bless her, she’s out to sea, but she’s trying. And you have us.” She kisses Beatrice’s head again. “And you’ve got me.” Her arm tightens around Beatrice, and she says very softly in her ear, “And I love you so fucking much it feels like more than my body can hold sometimes.”

Mary and Mother come back inside, and Ava and Beatrice instinctively shift themselves apart. Mother looks at the lot of them, and announces she’s going to bed early. 

Camila leaves for a hotel nearby, and Mary and Lilith turn in shortly thereafter. 

“I have something I want to say,” Ava whispers sleepily as they settle into each other in the dark.

“What’s that?” 

“Happy Christmas,” Ava says. After a moment, she shakes her head. “Nope. Still sounds weird.” 

Beatrice laughs. “Jackass.” 

“I love you, too.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the final chapter. It’s twice the length of all the others, so dig in and enjoy. ❤️

The goodbyes have different colors: Mother is cordial with Camila and Lilith, oddly familiar with Mary, quiet and respectful with Ava. Beatrice is surprised when she finds herself wrapped in a hug as they’re leaving, but after an awkward moment, she returns it. 

“Let’s not make it another fifteen years,” her mother says. 

Beatrice agrees. 

Camila books them a charter back to Paris, and they spend a few days decompressing at the Montmartre flat before Camila heads back to Vienna. They have decisions to make, and plans to begin forming. 

Lilith and Mary decide to stay in Paris. They begin looking for two flats next door or one above the other. This is for two reasons: one, because it’s clear that Lilith must remain within proximity to Ava in order to get and stay well, and two, because Ava’s been pushing herself, and she continues to have trouble with stairs in a way she didn’t before, so they need to find someplace a bit more accessible. 

Beatrice finally gets her to explain the way the energy works. It does have its own ebb and flow, and it seems to reach equilibrium on its own. If Lilith needs more, it flows out by itself, up to its own limits. If it’s at equilibrium, meaning Lilith doesn’t need any more at that moment, then it remains at its limited level, but Ava can push it outwards using her own body’s energy. 

“You’ve done that,” Beatrice concludes. 

“I did it a lot when we first found Lilith,” Ava says, “That’s why I had to nap so much. I was giving her as much as I could.” 

“But you did it with Mother, too. Three times, that I saw.” 

Ava nods. “Yeah. She seems a little broken. I figured it couldn’t hurt.” 

“Lilith coming back gave you a purpose.” 

“Yeah.” They sit together on the couch, leaning on each other and looking out at a heavy snowfall. “We talked about becoming a crime fighting duo, but I figured you wouldn’t like that.” 

“You’re right.”

“Even though we could have amazing superhero names? I mean, I could put on an explorer’s outfit and a top hat and beat people up with my cane, and I could be The Victorian, and we could paint her wings all badass and she could be Hell’s Angel. It would be pretty cool.” 

Beatrice knows this is just Ava playing, and she laughs. “No crime fighting.”

“Ugh, fine,” Ava sighs dramatically. “You’re no fun.” 

“I am  _ all sorts _ of fun,” Beatrice answers primly. 

Ava smirks. “You sure are,” she agrees. “And I might be ready to have some.” 

They make their way into the bedroom that they’ve been sharing since they got back. Beatrice is so relieved to be close to her this way again. She didn’t even fully realize how much she’d missed sex because they were dealing with so much else. Their pace is languid and gentle; Ava still feels a little fragile, a little tired. Beatrice is more than happy to take the lead, slowly undressing her, laying her down, spending long, lazy minutes stroking and kissing every bit of her. She has missed Ava’s skin, her sighs, her taste, the soft, hazy bliss of orgasm on her face. 

They settle into sleep afterwards, naked and tangled up. Beatrice is vaguely aware of the sounds of something similar occurring at the other end of the flat. It ticks the urgency of them finding separate flats up just a bit. 

It doesn’t take too terribly long to find themselves adjacent flats in a slightly sketchy part of the 10th Arrondissement: Beatrice and Ava take the first floor flat, Mary and Lilith, the second. They settle quickly into a rhythm of work and play, separate but shared lives. Until Mary can sort out opening a new wood shop, Beatrice is able to find her a security job at the Sorbonne. Mary is selling off the contents of her shop in Spain, and looking for a new space. Lilith and Ava spend afternoons together frequently. Ava has good days and bad days with her legs, so on the bad days, Lilith comes by and pushes her around in a wheelchair, and they grocery shop together. Lilith declares Ava the world’s mouthiest grocery cart. 

Beatrice and her mother speak from time to time. Her mother always asks after her friends. 

Camila comes in for weekends as often as she can. Sometime in mid-February, she tracks down Mother Superion and brings her along. A great deal of happy tears accompany her surprise, and Beatrice feels that with whatever flaws it may carry, this is how all of it was meant to be all along. 

Her father lasts until the end of March. 

When the call comes, they all make their way to London. Mother tells her that he’s probably going to go in the next day or so, so they hurry there. Beatrice goes to the hospital. He’s withered further since she saw him last. He can barely speak. 

He doesn’t look as angry as he did last time. He simply looks sad, exhausted, a bit afraid. “You’ve...changed,” he manages to say. 

“No. I’ve  _ become _ .” Beatrice touches his hand. “It’s different.” 

“I may have… made a mistake,” he sighs, and the words feel like an impossible labor for him to say. He closes his eyes. 

His heartbeat hangs on for another half a day, but those words are the last ones that he says to her. It could have meant anything, but Beatrice decides that he meant that perhaps he was wrong to treat her the way he did. It is difficult not to torture herself with it. 

They gather back at her mother’s home, and her mother has a few of her own people there to support and comfort; an auntie, an in-law, a member of the ladies’ auxiliary. Since this is hardly the occasion for costumes, Lilith is wearing the opera cape instead. The groups manage to coexist without much butting of heads, and they help Hilly in the kitchen, bring in takeaway lunches, and share an ungodly amount of cigarettes. Beatrice and her mother spend some quiet time away from everyone, up in her mother’s room. Side by side on the bed, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.

“It’s not so much grief,” her mother says after a long silence. “It’s mostly guilt. Guilt that I’m not more consumed by grief. Guilt that a part of me feels relieved that it’s over.” 

Beatrice understands. There’s an emptiness in her where that same sadness should be. “It’s a bit of guilt for me as well. It’s grief too, though. But not in the way one expects. I grieve what I wish I had. The father I would have liked for him to be.” 

Her mother takes her hand after another long silence. “Well,” she says, her tone becoming businesslike, “I’ll have you know that I fully expect you to grieve me properly when I pass.” 

“Sackcloth and ashes, then?” 

“Indeed. Wailing and gnashing of teeth.” 

Beatrice turns her head to look at her mother. “That kind of grief is earned.” 

Her mother looks back. “I’ll do my level best, then.”

Beatrice cannot remember them crying on each other before, but they do so now. It is neither quiet nor dignified, but it is exactly what they both seem to need. 

A soft knock comes on the door. It’s Ava. 

“How did you get up here?” Beatrice sniffles. 

Ava shrugs. “Having a good stair day.” She looks at them for a moment. “Can I come in? I won’t stay long.” 

Her mother nods, and Ava comes shuffling in, and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry for everything you’re feeling now. I know it’s hard. But you have each other, and that’s good. And you have me, if you want. Both of you.” She leans her cane against the edge of the bed, and puts a hand on each of their shoulders. Beatrice feels that flood of warmth, of well being, that she felt that night in front of Notre Dame when Ava came to her in the rain and touched her, brought her back home. 

Her mother notices the faint glow around Ava’s hands, but doesn’t say a word. 

“It’ll hurt for a while,” Ava says, drawing her hands away. “I can’t do anything about that. But it’ll get better. I promise.” 

She gets up and shuffles away, leaving them to spend a moment in the trace of benevolent energy that she gifted them.

“I’m not going to ask,” Mother says. “I don’t want to know. I’m just going to accept it.”

Her tone is quite final. 

After they return to Paris, life normalizes again. Beatrice occasionally gets updates on the estate, which Ava is quite clear she doesn’t want to know about. This baffles Beatrice, until it doesn’t. 

They lay in bed one night after making love, and Ava says, “You know how I told you I needed more time?” 

“Hm?” 

“You wanted to make things official, a few months back, and I said I needed more time. Because I wanted to figure out who I was, and what I was doing with my life.” 

Beatrice’s fingers are laced through Ava’s on the mattress between them, just as they were the day they had that conversation. “Yes, I remember.” 

“Well, I’ve sort of had a good idea for a little while now, but I wanted to be sure. And then… well, when things went South with your dad, I didn’t want to bring up marriage because I didn’t want you to think it was about the money. That’s why I haven’t wanted to know about the money. I don’t want it to be a factor in what we decide, in how we make our lives together.” 

This makes sense. Beatrice is actually a little surprised that she didn’t put it together on her own. “Alright.” 

“Our life is perfect, just like it is,” Ava goes on. “It’s just that… I’ve figured out who I am, or what I am. I’ve figured out what I need to do.” 

Beatrice can’t help asking. “Does it have to do with the journal you gave Mother at Christmas?” 

Ava chuckles. “Sort of.” 

“What was in it?” 

“I’m sure if you ask her, she’ll share it. But the title is, Three Hundred Reasons to Love Beatrice, All of Them Valid.” 

Beatrice laughs. “That’s not very subtle.” 

“No no. It’s just… a lot of stories about us, and about the amazing things you’ve done, and the wonderful things about you that she probably doesn’t know. That was my Christmas gift to her; all of the Beatrice she missed out on by not being part of your life.” 

Beatrice can’t help kissing her, a little harder than she means to. After a minute, she asks, “So, I feel as if there’s more to this story.” 

Ava winks. “There’s always more.” She strokes Beatrice’s face. “All the reading and journaling and thinking I’ve been doing, it helped me see something. We have so many stories, important stories. We need to tell them.  _ I _ need to tell them. I can change the names, whatever I need to do, but that’s what I need to do. The lives we led deserve a narrative. A life together, a married life, if you still want that, is our epilogue.”

Beatrice’s head spins for a moment. This is a lot to process. Ava is finally saying yes, she’s ready. And she’s also saying… “You want to write a book about the OCS?” 

“Several,” Ava says, nodding vigorously. “But I feel like you’re burying the lede here, I want to…” She sighs, and rolls over, and opens her nightstand drawer. She fishes out a small, black velvet box. “I want to do this. I don’t want to wait anymore. We’ve been this for a long time anyway.” She pops it open, and inside is a very simple, elegant gold band, brushed, with polished edges, and a few small stones – emeralds?– set into the top. 

“This looks familiar,” Beatrice says, furrowing her brow, but she can’t quite place it.

“It’s your mom’s old engagement ring. I called her and asked for her blessing so I could make an honest woman out of you, and after she stopped choking…” She pauses here, chuckling. “...she said she’d send this ring if I hadn’t already picked one out. It was the one she preferred until your dad insisted on something bigger and shinier.”

She takes it out of the box, and takes Beatrice’s hand. The metal is cool as it slides down her finger. Her heart finally catches up to her brain. This is real. They’re doing this. She starts laughing. She kisses Ava again, and wraps herself around her, and makes love to her again until Mary and Lilith’s broom thumps against the ceiling overhead, the universal signal for “YOUR SEX IS TOO LOUD.” 

After exhausting themselves completely, Ava holds her tightly. She asks, “So, is Mother Superion allowed to marry us? Because that’s who I want.” 

“I think we’re free to color outside the lines a bit. It’s not as if the Church is going to sanctify us.” 

“Fair point.”

Ava looks happier than she has in a long, long time. Beatrice kisses Ava’s chest and asks, “So, have you started the books?”

Ava grins. “Yeah. Wanna see?” 

Beatrice nods. She wants to see this new part of Ava that is emerging, the part of her that she feels so sure of that it’s shaping this new stage of their lives.

Ava rolls over again, and produces a cloth bound journal from inside her nightstand. “It might be a little hard to read in the beginning, because the story starts in a place that I haven’t wanted to talk much about. But, it gets better as it goes. It tells everything. It tells about us, how we fell in love. It tells about everything that we and the others gave; our service, our bond, our friendships, our family, everything.”

Beatrice takes the journal, opens it. On the first page, in Ava’s handwriting, it simply says, “Warrior Nun.” 

“It’s a working title,” Ava explains.

Beatrice smiles, and turns the page to read what her  _ intended _ , her soon-to-be  _ wife _ ,  _ her Ava _ , has written:

> _ My whole life, I’ve dreamt about being dead. I leave my body, and I see myself from above, a normal girl. Just, normal. I stare at that perfect normality until I wake up, and realize that I’m still the freak I’ve been my whole life. One thing I’ve learned since then? Life has a really fucked up way of making your dreams come true... _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Please subscribe if to my profile you enjoyed, as I may write more.
> 
> Also, I'm an artist and am in the process of making some pretty nice fanworks for this show. You can view the small but growing collection right here: https://tinyurl.com/y4jjjko7


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